


Raffles Has Escaped!

by clearinghouse



Series: Bertie and His Childhood Heroes [3]
Category: Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse, Raffles - E. W. Hornung, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Bertie POV, Boer War, Comedy, Crossover, Established Bunny Manders/A. J. Raffles, Established Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, M/M, Romance, rafflesweek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-29 00:40:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 35,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13915683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clearinghouse/pseuds/clearinghouse
Summary: When Bunny and Watson turn up at Bertie’s flat unannounced and in search of their runaway partners, Bertie and Jeeves are treated to the story of how consulting detective Sherlock Holmes and gentleman thief A. J. Raffles first matched wits, a quarter of a century ago.





	1. Jeeves Supplies the Mots Justes

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [rafflesweek](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/rafflesweek), a seven-day celebration of Raffles coinciding with the [Ides of March](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ides_of_March_\(short_story\)).

I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but I have to start by saying that I felt a pinch of disappointment whenever I thought of Holmes and Raffles. That’s Holmes the master detective who sticks his magnifying glass against the faintest of thumbprints, and Raffles the gentleman thief who pinches silver tie pins for sport. They’re famous for doing those things. But they’re retired now. In case you didn’t know, these two brilliant stars of my youth had, on separate occasions, laid hands on my humble address and rung me up for an assignation. Of course, when a youngish chap finds himself suddenly the subject of attention of two fellows whose entries in the nation’s registry of prized relics probably fall somewhere between those of the crown jewels and the Rosetta Stone, disappointment isn’t the first emotion to befall him. Shame might be the word, perhaps, but not disappointment, and not in the first mo. 

Rather, take it from me that he principally begins with a sort of paralysing shock. This is understandable, as the thing hits him squarely, and without so much as the chirp of a canary to warn him of the blow. Thus, he is shocked. This shock of his strips him of his otherwise steadfast faculties, and he will seem to be frozen in time, invulnerable to all that continues around him. That is to say, he won’t be able to speak, and won’t appear to be alive, exactly. Yet he is, in fact, very alive to all, even more than is usually the case. This enhanced awareness will extend mostly to his moral perspective of himself and the depth of his own inadequacies. Then, he’ll let a few nonsense syllables out, just to let the know the concerned party who has witnessed his reaction that he is still alive. After that, he will either collapse in a manly faint, or else he will take to speaking and then, in an ironic twist of fate, be unable to stop speaking.

Anyway, on the whole, I am grateful. When one day, while Jeeves and I were in New York, and it got home that I was with the real Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson in a jazz club, my excitement bubbled up to such an extent that a waiter had to be called up to mop up the excess. I’ve forgotten why it was that Jeeves and I were in New York in the first place. I can narrow it down to two possibilities: either I was hiding from an aunt who was itching to pin some ancient schoolmate's daughter on me, or Jeeves had talked me into the holiday as his compensation for his helping a friend of mine not lose his uncle’s allowance and become an indefinite squatter in my guest room. Well, the why’s not important. Neither is the wherefore. What’s important is that I met them. I liked them, and they, in turn, weren’t averse to Bertram. Watson was keen on meeting the bloke who wrote the Jeeves stories, and Holmes was keen on uncovering Jeeves’s secret dark motives for feudally dispensing help to one and all, and they picked us out and we all had a corking time in America.

A. J. Raffles and Bunny Manders, too, I count myself very fortunate to have bumped into. Please note that I have introduced Bunny’s name as Bunny Manders, and Raffles’s as A. J. Raffles, for reasons other than my general chumminess with them. Each of them is particular about always having the Harry substituted, or the Arthur cut short. I don’t know what the J. is short for. I wouldn’t have even guessed that Raffles was still kicking, until Holmes sent Jeeves and I on an international mission to get at the old bird and slip him a message. We biffed back to London, and Jeeves went to work at once. I think that Jeeves worked it out so that I encountered Bunny by accident someplace. Jeeves is clever that way. After our meeting, Bunny shoved Raffles round to the flat later, and eventually I recovered my grip on the situation and we all buddied up like a crew of Old Boys.

I am including Jeeves in this club of pals, by the way. It’s hard to explain, though, because Jeeves is also my valet, while being my friend. Long story. Can't go into it now.

The nub of all this is that I’m admitting to feeling a certain disappointment after all the above. “But Bertram,” I hear you ask, “how can you feel anything but appreciation for having met these peerless heroes of sensational literature, whose adventures you so fancied as an infant?” I’ll tell you.

Holmes is a kind of detective. Raffles is a kind of burglar. If I had been tasked to write a narrative about the famous detective and the famous burglar, and, after long hours of effort, I had found that the end product I’d cooked up was completely lacking in any nighttime heists, skeleton keys, or baffled police constables scratching their heads, I would feel myself a failure. It’s simply not done. Any self-respecting plot involving Holmes and Raffles ought to have Holmes scheming up a way to catch Raffles in the act of stealing some lady’s priceless diamond tiara. It was a story begging to be told.

Yet history had not delivered on this juicy promise. These men were not enemies. Bunny had revealed to us that Holmes had scooped Raffles out of South Africa himself. Holmes wanted to have a former criminal to work for him, and Raffles answered right-ho. The two had worked along parallel lines ever since then. Do you see what I’m driving at? There was never a caper between them.

“It’s the laziness of the universe, Jeeves,” I declared sagely.

It was morning, and my tower of a valet was bowing slightly at the hip to set the breakfast tray on the sternum. To my observance, which was indeed wise beyond my years, he replied, “Sir?”

I elaborated. “The universe doesn’t want to decide any hard questions. If you have one fellow, an arm of the law, who always catches the criminal, and you’ve got a second fellow of looser morals who always gets away with his crime, how do you decide the winner between them? It’s too hard a question, Jeeves, and fate has conspired to avoid answering it. It is a heavy loss to anthropologists everywhere.”

After fiddling with the placement of the fork and coffee on the tray, Jeeves pulled back and erected himself. There was a thoughtfulness in his regularly thoughtful features. He is a tall chap, and I thought him quite regal-looking from my position. “Perhaps you allude to the myth of Laelaps the hound and the Teumessian fox,” Jeeves said.

I didn’t allude to it, but it sounded somewhat familiar. “That sounds somewhat familiar. What were their names?”

“Laelaps the hound and the Teumessian fox, sir. It is a myth which holds its origins in ancient Greece.” Jeeves is a brainy cove. He turns on like a light bulb whenever he has the chance to put his intelligence to use. He did so now. “Laelaps was a magical hunting animal, of whom it was said that no prey could escape. The Teumessian fox was likewise magical, in the sense that it could never be caught by a predator. The infallible hound was sent to capture the infallible fox. A paradox ensued, in which success and failure were simultaneously guaranteed to both individuals. Zeus, anxious of this paradox, averted the need for a solution by immediately casting both animals into the sky and fixing each as an unmoving constellation.”

I’ve said before that Jeeves is a marvel, and I’ll say it again. Jeeves is a marvel. The metaphor, if that's what it was, was perfectly apt. “That’s precisely our situation in a nutshell,” I declared. “The Greeks were deprived of the battle for the ages, and so too have we been robbed of what should have been history’s greatest championship match.”

“Indeed, sir?”

“That’s right, Jeeves. I refer to the matchup-that-never-was between Sherlock Holmes and A. J. Raffles.” I crossed my arms and sank backwards in my pillow, in a show of general irritation in accordance with my views. I didn’t stay like that for long, however, since there was a warm breakfast sitting in front of me, but I believe my point came across. “There were no burglaries perpetrated by Raffles for Holmes to solve. Against all advice, they shook the hands of peace before the suggestion of a tussle ever crossed their minds. It will remain forever a mystery whether the cat or the mouse would have prevailed in the proverbial chase across the kitchen floor. It is a great loss.”

“The public whom the gentlemen in question serve may be disinclined to agree with you, sir.”

I shrugged. I couldn’t argue it. The public’s needs have to come first. “Well, all right. I’ll allow that the laziness of the universe is good news for the lady whose diamond tiara wasn’t stolen. She won’t suffer any uneasiness.” I waved my fork in the air for a second. “However, it’s not all daisies and sunshine for her. She also won’t ever have cause to meet the famous Holmes, or the famous Raffles, for that matter. The robbery could have made her famous, as well. Her unassuming tiara would become the talk of the town. It’s not everyday a lady’s tiara is stolen.”

“Though I hesitate to contradict, I feel it is necessary to mention that it is, in fact, the unusual piece of jewelry which hasn’t been the fulcrum of misdeed at some point in its history, sir.”

“I mean, stolen by Raffles.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And then recovered by Holmes!”

“It is true that such occurrences are relatively notable, sir.”

Briefly I was silent. Having been blown a bit off course, it took me the space of some seconds to retrace my steps to my original train of thought. Then I found it. “I can only say I’m sorry that the world missed out on such hot stuff. I mourn the lost excitement with a full heart. But if Holmes and Raffles and the whole of England are glad the way things turned out, then that’s for them to decide, and I wish them the best.” I smiled the Wooster smile. “Besides which, one ought to be glad for one’s friends, what?”

“Very true, sir.”

“I can’t talk as though they’re imaginary. They are people, too, on top of being our friends. I’m sure they are far happier not having to contend with more burglaries and such than they need to.”

To my surprise, Jeeves wasn’t so sure. I could see he wasn’t going to say so at first. The Jeeves I know isn’t fond of speaking out of turn. When he feels it necessary, he usually coughs smoothly. That generally has the effect of clearing the room of all other noise, also. He didn’t cough now. Instead, he went all-in. “Gentlemen of such natures as enterprising as theirs may be equally disappointed by the absence of any confrontational outcome, sir. The loss, while of significance to the anthropologists, may be even more deeply felt by parties personally involved.”

I hadn’t considered the circs. from that view before. “A loss to Holmes and Raffles themselves, you mean? You don’t suppose they each secretly want to prove that they’re better than the other?” I called them my friends, but a friend is honest, and honestly I wouldn’t put it past them.

“Not exactly, sir. I merely infer from their characters that they are easily motivated by the proposition of extraordinary challenges.”

I had to stretch the brain muscles to unpack that one. “A couple of thrill-seekers?”

There was a pretty sparkle cast in my direction from Jeeves’s eyes. “Yes, sir. Although I did not employ such language myself, such would be an accurate assessment.”

I huffed, by way of expressing bewilderment. An urge to shudder presented itself, though I passed it over. To clarify, I’m not the type to seek out trouble. I prefer a quiet, harmonious existence. Thrills, in my opinion, are best experienced by someone else and then read about. While I can respect that the thrill-seeking thrives in others, I cannot empathize. “You are right, Jeeves. Holmes and Raffles would size up one another like two alpha male dogs out on walks that cross paths and suddenly spot each other, I imagine. Except, that didn’t happen. That it didn’t happen is entirely the point we are making.”

“Quite so, sir.”

What he was saying struck me powerfully. I gave the man a tender look. “Thank you, Jeeves,” I sighed. “I am still disappointed, but because of you, the painful sentiment hardly registers at present.”

Jeeves was intrigued. I got the distinct impression that he was hanging on my every word. “Indeed, sir? While I am pleased to be of service, it is difficult to see in what way I have been of use in this instance.”

I answered him boldly and without delay. “Why, you have reminded me that I live a life free of thrills. That thought renders me immune to disappointment. It depresses the soul to know that Holmes will never run Raffles into a dugout concealed underneath an Oriental rug, but at least I am neither Watson nor Bunny, and therefore limited in my exposure to thrill-seekers.”

Amusement tugged at the corners of the corners of Jeeves’s refined mouth. “I am glad to hear it, sir.”

“You’re not a thrill-seeker, are you, Jeeves?”

“No, I am not, sir.”

“I didn’t think so,” I replied with gusto. I was confident that I knew my Jeeves well, and in this I apparently was of sound judgement. “You and I are of one mind in this department. We favour routine, and we regard all deviations from it as unfortunate and regrettable. We live content with the status quo.”

Jeeves made no reply. He did not nod, he did not grunt, and he did not blink. He simply stood there.

I hadn’t been expecting a lack of reply. It caught me off guard. My confidence had come easily, and it left me with equal ease. Possibly Jeeves and I were not of one mind after all. I didn’t like to think about the prospect. Ours was a happy little home that we shared, unless I had misunderstood virtually everything. I might have misunderstood. A little shyly, I added, “You are content with the status quo, and all that?”

Jeeves nodded. “I am exceedingly content, sir.”

That was good, if it was accurate. Yet doubt persisted. “Well, very good,” I said. Pushing the envelope seemed to be called for. I pushed it. “And when I say the status quo, I am, of course, not speaking of the old status quo, in which employer and employee maintained a formal distance and rejected all shows of chumminess. I am, rather, speaking of the new status quo, in which employer and employee have become friend and friend, and are prone to sharing food from one another’s plates, when the right moment arises. They are friends, known by a select few to sit at the same table occasionally.”

“Yes, sir. I have no cause for complaint.”

I wasn’t altogether won over by this unimpressive response, but I was thrilled that he hadn’t disagreed with the chumminess stuff. It had taken us both a lot of work to get to this point of brushing the lint off each other’s shoulders, and it would have wasted a great deal of time if we’d had to pull out the stopper and start over. Moreover, he did seem to be in earnest. Quite unlike when he’s harbouring a distaste for something I’ve done or bought, Jeeves didn’t resemble a stuffed frog in the least. His features were soft, and his presence was warm. 

So, things were all right. Jeeves is rarely emotional, and sometimes awfully introspective, and this must be one of those times. 

I extended my hand, and clapped him affectionately on his arm, one pal to another. I let my passionate friendship be obvious in my voice. “Thank you, Jeeves.”

Jeeves kindly accepted my gesture of sympathetic camaraderie. “Thank you, sir,” he said gently. Then he shimmered away. He doesn’t walk, you know. He shimmers.

* * *

I was still busy digesting breakfast and thinking academically about why the lady who took the strychnine in my latest crime novel had supposed that taking in a thing with a name like strychnine was anything but a bad idea, when Jeeves materialised at the threshold which separates living room from the abodes of the various spectres who haunt my apartment complex.

“Good afternoon, sir,” Jeeves said. As it should have been a good morning that Jeeves had given, his words baffled me. Evidently, afternoon had crept along stealthily and then taken us by surprise. Jeeves was pleasant about it, however.

Someone behind the door answered, “Hi, Jeeves.” This individual used an indoor voice which implied to the attentive listener that this was not one of the Drones Club regulars who was at my door, nor could he be an aunt, nor one of those beazels who are all right viewed from a distance. He asked, “By any chance, is Raffles here?”

“Not to my knowledge, sir,” Jeeves replied.

“Oh. You haven’t seen him anyplace?”

“No, sir.”

“Has Bertie seen him?”

“I shall make enquiries, sir.”

“I’ll ask him myself, if he’s in?”

Despite Jeeves’s nonchalance, I considered the above to be an unusual series of statements. The visitor at my door had mentioned a name that no sane visitor would mention, in light of the official out-of-commission status of its owner, and this made for a fascinating conundrum. Zeus and I were brothers in paradox management in that moment. Resolving to investigate, I gave up my comfortable place on the three-seater and jumped onto the mat, just as Jeeves was letting in a man of small size, large soul, and dignified grey hair that had once been sandy as a beach.

“Mr ‘Bunny’ Manders is here to see you, sir,” Jeeves introduced the fellow. The extra quotation marks that Jeeves employed were audible.

I was surprised. Jeeves was right. It was Bunny. True, he wasn’t accompanied by the big cheese at present, but one can look at Bunny and be certain that they are indeed looking at Bunny without the extra evidence that the presence of the man with the eternal crooked smirk affords. A railway carriage can’t always look ahead at what it’s about to toddle into, and it isn’t necessarily balanced on both sides to the inch, but it surely follows its leader with the unwavering loyalty befitting a soldier’s monarch, and that ought to give you a good picture of how Bunny strikes the senses.

“Bunny!” I exclaimed. “We weren’t expecting you. What brings you to the Wooster castle? Have you come for dinner?”

He was friendly, but firm. “No.”

“That’s good. If you had, it would have made for an awkward clarification of the facts. Dinner isn’t for several hours, you see.” I quickly glanced outside a window to be sure of this, and the sunlight reassured me. Jeeves had informed me earlier that the weather would be exceptionally congenial, and it was good to see it continue fine.

“Uh,” Bunny said eloquently. I gathered he was held up by something or other. Then he found his stride again. “No, I haven’t come for dinner. Have you seen Raffles?”

“I’m afraid I have not seen him. At least, I have not seen him since I last saw you also, which I think is what you meant. Why? Where has the old mischief-maker gone?” 

“I don’t know that.”

“You don’t know?” I was aghast. A dreadful idea dawned on me suddenly, and I rushed it out. “He hasn’t zipped to America without you?” It was unthinkable. It isn’t easy to forget one’s most cherished housemate and traveling companion when one zips off to another country. I’ve never left Jeeves behind, myself. It would be silly to even try. Jeeves calls our taxicab. 

Bunny wasn’t concerned. Far from being concerned, he smiled as if laughing at a preposterous comedy of errors. “Oh, nothing like that. He told me before he disappeared that we would still be seeing Holmes and Watson very soon. He’s around here, somewhere.”

“But you don’t know where, precisely?”

“That’s right.”

“But you do know that he’s not far off in the distance?” I clicked the tongue disapprovingly. “Bunny, old egg, you’re talking nonsense. This story is a bit thick to swallow. Does it tally in your mind, Jeeves?”

“There does appear to information missing at present,” Jeeves said. “May I take your hat and coat, Mr Manders?”

Bunny gingerly gave up the jacket and boater to Jeeves. It was quite a reach, seeing as how Jeeves is approximately eight and a half times Bunny’s size. His hands and hat now free, he proceeded to hop about the premises, craning his neck into some of the rooms.

“Looking for Raffles?” I ventured. “I don’t mean to be unhelpful—a Wooster longs to be helpful to his pals and loved ones—but the painted egg you’re searching for is in someone else’s basket. If he was here, Jeeves would know.”

Bunny slowly stopped what he was doing, and tentatively rejoined the party. He passed a skeptical gaze over carpet and light fixtures alike as he did so. “I’m looking for anything missing.”

“We’re not missing anything, either. Jeeves would know about that, too.”

“It could be something small,” Bunny said, half to me and half to the part of the wall where the heat comes from when the top spectres of the complex decide that winter has started. “It would be evidence that A. J. has been here.”

I supposed there was something in that. Still, it seemed to me to be jumping ahead of things.

An amiable cough emanated from less active quarters of the living room.

This expelling of the air with sound from Jeeves was normal, and often welcome. In case I haven’t made it clear already, I’ll repeat the point: my man is very sensitive to atmospheric pressures and tensions, and likes to do away with all those by clearing his throat. It takes a strong will to apply this method, but it’s foolproof. Hasn’t let him down once. He’s never failed to summon the attention of the bench. It’s a rousing success, and I like to encourage success, in all its scarce forms. 

However, I wasn’t so happy about this success at present. Emotions aren’t always easily explained, and often don’t want rational explanation, but I can explain my present unhappiness. It has to do with my friend and counsel’s bothering to cough. Jeeves coughs when he feels a conversation isn’t prepared to admit his input otherwise. Give it some basic mulling over, and it will become self-evident that, should Jeeves feel the need to cough before every little sentence in any conversation which has already been elevated by his participation, the said conversation would depart from its natural spontaneity and approach the laboured. It would begin to take on trying lengths, to put it in other words. 

Therefore, Jeeves, being eminently practically-minded, limits his mighty cough to the role of making way for whatever ripe fruit he has to share. More importantly, he feels that it is essential to make way, because he is a valet. The Feudal Spirit doesn’t abide the wage-earner taking on airs above his pay grade, or something like that. A proper employee doesn’t tell all to a proper employer, until given leave to. Jeeves has never given me a single good lecture on the topic, though, so I might be slightly off on any of this. Jeeves seems to think I should know all this in detail. I don’t, really. I’ve had to study it.

Recently, I’ve noticed that the Jeevesian model has two modes. If the stick shift is pulled down and left, then Jeeves is free and easy. He shares a toast to Alexandrian libraries with Holmes, for example, or he apprises Raffles of how some resourceful, admirable souls in New York have taken to wearing clever systems of straps in the area of their boots and their legs. That’s all to the good. Nevertheless, if the shift stick is pushed up and right, then Jeeves tightens like a drawstring bag. He closes up. This is the old-style habit of driving, as far as Jeeves is concerned. In this mode, he keeps up the ancient formulas of respectfulness, dignity, and not talking too much. It is in this second mode, and not the other one, that Jeeves coughs. 

Do you see the problem? I’ll concede that it takes some logical deduction to get to the end. To save time, here it is: Jeeves, while being generally good, wasn’t being friendly. I was never much use at changing the gears, so there was nothing for it but to wait it out. 

“Yes, Jeeves?” I asked. As a reminder, I said this in response to his expelling of air with sound a moment ago, as Bunny was quietly dissecting the flat with the scrutiny of a bride-to-be primed to find fault.

“Very possibly, sir, the confusion that surrounds the issue of the disappearance of Mr Raffles will be reduced, if not eliminated altogether, were Mr Manders to elucidate his reasons for believing that Mr Raffles is in this vicinity, or has been lately in this vicinity.”

Bunny stopped in his tracks sharply. He took a fresh look at Jeeves, and at myself. A modest sheepishness characterised his aspect. “Oh, yes, absolutely. Good idea. I must be coming off as rude. I was only—” He looked down at himself, and grinned. The grin fell short of hearty conviction. “I was only excited. May I sit down?”

“By all means, my seat is your seat.”

He politely accepted my invitation. However, he didn’t actually plant himself on the sofa that I had been sitting on. The reading chair was good enough for him. His hands folded on his lap as he unravelled his account for the benefit of Jeeves and self. “It’s nothing new for Raffles to vanish into thin air,” he began. “It’s been his way ever since I met him. Every once in a while, he turns restless, and disappears. It was an especially severe habit in the old Albany days. Back then, he could leave the civilised world for weeks without a whisper of warning. But that was a long time ago.”

“Ah,” I said. “So, it’s no longer normal for him to vanish? He’s learnt to be a good fellow and not leave his biographer behind, and so forth?”

Bunny laughed good-naturedly. “Oh, goodness, no. He still disappears and leaves me behind when he wants to. I don’t expect him to ever give that up completely.” He relayed these facts with a mature irritation that hinted at a kind of loving fondness. There was a sweetish warmth underneath his grimace. I’ve seen the same expression on his map worn by wives who let their husbands scurry off for the monthly round of golf or cricket. “The difference now is in the extent of it. Raffles going out alone has become the exception, rather than the rule; and whenever it does happen that he goes out, he leaves me a note to save me from worry. He also cuts the trips down to a few days at the most.”

“Good sport,” I said. “Still, even that modified behaviour, repeated with sufficient regularity, must be fit to irritate the most forgiving of saints.”

“No, it’s all right. I’m just glad that he leaves a note. Besides,” Bunny added with a nostalgic, quiet smile, “these days, he always finds a way to make it up to me, when he gets back.”

Jeeves, while still being cordial, eyed Bunny carefully, and perhaps to the tune of warning admonishment.

“Ah,” I said. It may have been a little lost on Jeeves, but I fully appreciated Bunny’s subtlety. Subtlety comes with the profession, I think. These thieving types have to be smooth as milk. “You must mean that he gives you a golden pocket watch or something picked out special from the loot. Very admirable. He’s quite the selfless pal, that Raffles.”

Bunny hesitated a spot. “Yes, right,” he said eventually, and this seemed to appease Jeeves. “Anyway,” he went on, “I found the newest note on the bureau this morning. He was out of the house before I was awake, but then again, I’m a late sleeper. In the note, he said that he’d be snatching a tall bottle of wine from a young admirer’s cellar. One young admirer in particular came to my mind immediately, when I read that.”

“Me? I couldn’t be this young admirer in question. I don’t believe I have any cellars. Nor do we have wine. Do we have wine, Jeeves?”

“We are in possession of a trifling amount of wine, sir, but there is no cellar in the flat."

Bunny shrugged off the difficulty. “Yes, well, that’s the most specific Raffles has ever been in one of his notes. I didn’t doubt that he was referring to you. We’d talked about you two recently. In any case, I thought this might be the day I finally surprise him on the street before he surprises me. That’s why I came here.”

“You were betting on finding him in my flat?”

“Finding him,” Bunny said with gravity, “and surprising him in the act!” Though the fist wasn’t literally raised in a gesture of decisive action, the image would have captured the mood of his statement very well. “Of course, it was absurd of me to think so. Raffles wouldn’t make it so easy. Today’s not my day. He hasn’t been at work here. I doubt that anything’s been stolen from your rooms.”

“Awfully sorry,” I said, and I meant it. “On the sunny side, it’s a delightful thing that you’ve shown up today. And I don’t speak simply of the delight of a visitor’s company.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s a neat coincidence. Jeeves and I were just discussing Holmes and Raffles this morning, and here you are, asking after one of them.”

“You were?” Bunny was abruptly quite interested. “Today may be my day after all,” he hummed. “Why were you talking about them?”

“I fear you may be sniffing the impression of clue which will prove to be a dud,” I replied sternly. Better to cut him off at the pass than to let him fall in, I thought. “Our conversation cannot possibly be of relevance to you. I was telling Jeeves what a loss it is that Holmes and Raffles were never forces opposed to one another. Ah, let me finish!” 

This was spoken in hasty response to the unencouraging raising of his eyebrows. 

“These things have their pluses and their minuses. I’ll be the first to assert relief that the two have not counted ten paces apart in an open field, with their seconds standing by scribbling down descriptions of the frightful mess. Everyone winds up generally happier when these things are avoided, ultimately. The public good notwithstanding, it makes for a lost opportunity which present and future readership will sorely miss. No one will ever sit a child on the knee, and regale to the bug-eyed the mouthwatering tale of how the peerless detective and the peerless burglar came to blows. One can only guess as to the species of confrontation that could have taken place between England’s premier hero and her signature villain, had fate not made them bosom pals before their time. The deficit will be felt for centuries.”

“But, that’s not right, Wooster.”

“I repeat,” I insisted with stiff upper lip, “centuries. You are too modest, Bunny, old thing. You must correct it.”

“Bertie,” Bunny said. His tenor-high tones had gone steady enough to level a painting. “You’re mistaken. When Holmes and Raffles met, they weren’t bosom pals. In fact, they were the opposite of pals. When they first came face to face, it was in the middle of London, high above the people on the streets, under a dark twilight—and with each man holding a revolver.”


	2. Bunny Takes Charge

If I didn’t have it on good authority that the Wooster ears were the enviable standard of good health when it comes to ears, I wouldn’t have believed them. What Bunny had just submitted to my attention, vis. a stunning development of facts concerning the Holmesian-Rafflesian merger, had me tripped at the instep. It was a real corker. I was a boy in the hottest of summertimes, a hair’s width away from collapsing on account of heat stroke and exhaustion, only to feel a hint of the breeze of the sweet air-conditioning inside the cinema that it just so happened I was dragging myself past. 

(By the way, the pronunciation of the term Holmesian is fairly as it appears it ought to be. On the other hand, Rafflesian is a trickier prop.; it rhymes with the word Indonesian. Strange, I know, but Jeeves told me so. According to him, it’s the name of a kind of flower. Never seen one myself. Even so, Jeeves is usually correct about these things.)

Ignoring my visitor briefly, I addressed my man. My first instincts, when faced with this incredible breakthrough, were to advance the news to the notice of Jeeves. “Fate has not skimped out on the trimmings after all, Jeeves!”

“Indeed not, sir.” Though it never shows to the untrained observer, Jeeves was excited also. His mouth did the little twitching thing, his voice echoed a trifle, etc. 

“The other gods, wishing to take odds on the suspenseful slugfest of the ages, have frowned on Zeus and his constellations scheme. He has justly bowed his head in shame and withdrawn. The hound and the fox were not retired prematurely. The much-anticipated chase is back on.”

“Such would undeniably appear to be the case, sir.”

“But how can this be?” I said suddenly, turning once more to the other chap in the room. “You told us that relations between Holmes and Raffles were no more than an extension of the olive branch by the one to the other.”

Bunny was giving Jeeves and self a vague, distant smile. Something or other was entertaining him. I haven’t the foggiest on what it was. He might have been thinking of a joke he’d heard from somebody. “That is the short of what happened,” he said. “The long of it is more complicated. I do recall telling you that Holmes once gave Raffles the chance to become a thief for the common good, in a manner of speaking, and that Raffles accepted. I didn’t mean to suggest that this was the sum of all that took place. It took a long time before the invitation ever got to him, and Raffles didn’t make it an easy job for Holmes, or Watson. Lord knows I wasn’t a help to them, either.” 

“Well, what happened?” I prodded impatiently. It’s easy for the chap telling the story to dawdle, not so for the chap dying to hear the ending.

“Are you sure you want to hear it from only my end?”

“I will not go so far as to convey that our warm and binding friendship will be in jeopardy if you do not do so, and at all convenient speed,” I said. Though I meant to qualify this with something more, Bunny got the idea ahead of schedule.

He said it was all right, since it plainly meant so much to me, and, without further ado, launched into the action from its inception.

Now, at this juncture, if you’ll let me, I’d like to discuss a personal thingummy of mine. Nothing big, just a little something. When I read a story which is chiefly about the narrator relating the outlandish tale relayed to him by the mysterious stranger—a tale itself not wanting in ample dialogue—I find it’s a lot of quotation marks to keep track of. I have to stay on top of who is speaking, and who isn’t. Otherwise, I’ll be meandering along minding my own business and enjoying the buildup, when it abruptly dawns on me that I’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere and have been left behind. This same problem, in my own experience, is felt by the chap who had to write the thing. A play within a play is fine for a fellow like Shakespeare, but not Bertram. I’d rather have to keep track of the murder weapon than the punctuation. So, I won’t be fiddling with the lines within lines. Instead, I’ll paraphrase.

It went like this.

Raffles and Bunny were living in a quiet, rural village where no one would bother about them. It was some village not too outside of London. They were hiding out there because Raffles was supposed by the public to be dead. I confess I don’t have a solid grasp on why Bunny was hiding out there as well. Bunny had already served his sentence. I asked Bunny why he was in hiding as well, and he replied that he goes where Raffles goes. So there you are. 

There was nothing for them to do in this village, miles away from the clubs and galas of their glory years. Shortly after moving into the neighborhood, they had occupied their spare time with a crime spree, robbing the choice houses. This was good, and had worked out to be exactly what the doctor ordered, for a time. Then a war came on in Africa. Crime doesn’t raise the spirits while there’s a war on. Neither Raffles nor Bunny thought it lively to pay skulking visits to houses whose young and middling males were fighting for the flag in parts unknown. The master thief and his accomplice silently agreed to call it a holiday until the sting of patriotism ceased to trouble them.

Plans changed soon after that. England’s mobilising song touched their guilty hearts, and Raffles decided to join the noble fight for the security of his country in a foreign land. Bunny, dazzled by Raffles’s poster-image uprightness, accompanied him to Africa. Once there, they signed up for the war. This was good also, insofar as Raffles was concerned. Bunny, meanwhile, missed the quiet, peaceful village. 

Some months passed in this way. Patterns continued until, in the normal process of regular fighting, Bunny unexpectedly took a rude hit in the leg. He was immobilised. This was fairly tough, as he was immobilised in the open, which is a bad position to be stuck in when there’s fighting going on. Fortunately, Raffles was there to pull him in behind a rock or something. Raffles patched Bunny up and commended him on his new distinguished and venerable limp that, despite not being tolerated among soldiers, would earn Bunny no end of compliments back home. They talked a bit. Eventually Raffles grew bored, and careless. He picked a half-hearted fight with one of the helmeted riflemen on the other side, to pass the time. Then, there followed an explosion.

It wasn’t cold outside, but back at the army camp, Bunny was numb to all and sundry. Even the sight of the unmoving Raffles on a stretcher didn’t register with him readily. The peculiar numbness specific to his wound proved short-lived, but the rest of the numbness stuck around on its own. Bunny had known, somehow, that the way his friend had wanted to go out was with a bang. Back in the tent they had shared, Bunny couldn’t even look at the empty place where Raffles had so often slept, or at any of the bottles of wine that he and Raffles had pinched from abandoned buildings against regulations. He sat and moped. 

At some later hour, an unfamiliar army man of some superior rank came to see him. The man did not vacillate in his purpose to converse with Bunny. He was quick and to the point. “Are you Manders?”

Bunny, by his own admission, was irritable and taciturn. Everything about this stranger was completely unremarkable. Besides, Bunny’s hope in mankind was finished. “Yes, I am.”

“I’ve heard you’ve been wounded,” the man said, “enough to grant you an honorable discharge. How bad is it?”

“I have a permanent limp.” If Bunny could have answered more tersely, he would have.

The man misunderstood Bunny’s tone. “That’s not as bad as it may seem to you now,” he said. “It’s likely to show great improvements within a few months.” There was a pause. The man asked, “In the left leg?”

Through the sheet of numbness stifling him, Bunny was struck by the peculiar question. Perched as he was on his rear, and thus not currently limping, he still fancied it sufficient that his torn pant leg and the visible dressing should have left no room for doubt. “Yes, it is.”

The man frowned. The tragedy of it all seemed to take advantage of the moment by helping itself to its fullest swing at him. Well-meaning sympathy poured from the chap in droves. “I’m sorry,” he said honestly.

This was an even more peculiar thing for someone to say to Bunny. It puzzled him. Miserable as he was, he paid attention. 

“I’m here because of your connection to Mr Raffles. I know the criminal he was, and the criminal that you were.”

The weight of the charge failed to click. “You know about us, do you?” Bunny grumbled. “It was that general, wasn’t it? The general who found out about us. He said he wouldn’t tell on us yet. I guess he didn’t bother waiting after all. Fine. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“You’re mistaken,” the man replied, “I didn’t learn anything from him, or from anyone else here.”

Bunny huffed dubiously. “Did you find out on your own? What are you, a detective?”

“No,” rejoindered a raised and forceful voice, “I am the surgeon who saved your unworthy friend’s life. You had better listen to what I have to say. I’ve come a dreadfully long way to say it, and your listening to what I have to say will be infinitely more valuable to you than it will be to me. It’ll be more than either you or your partner in crime have earned.”

As much as it rankled with the marrow to hear his lifetime companion’s life said to be unworthy, it was the other implication that Bunny chose to focus on. Namely, the bit about the life being saved. The numbness that had plagued his interests before was itself suddenly overwhelmed by a new kind of numbness. Raffles was all right. Well, it remained to be seen whether or not Raffles was really all right, but he was alive, and that was the crux. Pounds upon pounds of thankfulness and humility crushed Bunny in the presence of this self-styled surgeon. “Raffles—?” That was the only word Bunny was able to vocalise.

“Yes, he’s fine. He looked worse than he was. To be sure, he was quite bad, and it could have gone either way, but he’s pulling through. It was very fortunate for him that I was here. I never came here planning on practicing medicine for the army again, but there wasn’t another surgeon available to take your friend’s case, and I was left with little alternative. He hasn’t regained consciousness yet. Frankly, he’ll be very lucky if there isn’t significant impairment to his breathing.”

“Who are you?” Bunny’s whisper was reverent. It wasn’t going to stay that way forever, but that’s how it was when he asked that.

“I should say Captain Watson, but that was when I was a young man. I haven’t been an army surgeon for twenty years. I was put out of commission early, too, in the Afghan war. I’m a general practitioner in London, retired from the army.”

“Retired?”

“Yes, retired. As I said, your Mr Raffles was a special case. Well, him, and some other boys I took care of afterwards. I wasn’t here for them, of course, but it’s not in my heart to not provide assistance when there’s an obvious need for it, and when it’s in my power to be useful. They certainly deserved the aid more than your friend did. Do you want to hear what I’ve crossed an entire ocean to tell you, or don’t you?”

The intense dislike that this angel in human shape harboured for Bunny’s compatriot glanced off his skin unremarked. Gratitude was his shield. Watson could have called Raffles the cricketing world’s answer to nature’s mosquito, and Bunny would have welcomed it. Nor did Bunny waste time wondering why his fellow national had thought it so bally important to save Raffles in particular, or what it was Watson had to tell him. Bunny’s priorities were too strongly skewed. It was because of the efforts of this unimpressive and retired surgeon that Bunny would hear Raffles’s beloved voice again, and that was all that mattered. His eyes might have watered. “Thank you.”

This was probably an irritating elusion from the subj. at hand, from Watson’s perspective. Bunny doesn’t blame him if he was of that opinion, at any rate. However, in the face of such raw feeling, Watson’s irritation and antipathy couldn’t be sustained. He had taken a hard line in respect to the burglarious pair, yet the line slackened. He saw how happy Bunny was about Raffles. That happiness was making it hard to get anything of substance through to the little guy. Watson frowned for a little while, then he let it go. “You should go see him,” he said at last. “I will talk to you later.”

Bunny thanked him once more. For good measure, he pulled himself out of hand and offered Watson a stiff British handshake to go with it. Watson kindly allowed it.

Oh, and it turns out, by the by, that having a wound in one’s leg makes one very aware of one’s posture and gait. That's how it was for Bunny, at any rate. And one who takes exceptionally close stock of the curious movements made by one’s own limbs also notices those of the limbs of other people. Therefore, Bunny assures me that, had he not taken one for the team, he would likely not have noted the exceedingly slight favouring of the left leg exhibited by Watson as the latter made his unceremonious exit.

* * *

An inexplicable ring of our doorbell ruined the dramatic atmosphere. I didn’t like it. It cut Bunny off in mid-sentence, for one thing.

I asked, “Who could that be, Jeeves?”

“I cannot say, sir. I shall find out directly.” Jeeves floated to the door.

“Is it Raffles?” Bunny said to himself. I, however, wasn’t prepared to make any predictions.

While Bunny had been spilling the beans, I had resumed my comfortable seat on the sofa. The sociable mood hadn’t taken Jeeves yet, and he had remained standing. I appreciate that that’s not new for him, but it wasn’t necessary. I wished in vain that he would take a hint and relax with the rest of us. He’s too stubborn to take hints. By this time, Holmes or Raffles would have wagged a sharp finger at him and told him to take a seat already. But I couldn’t do that. It would be silly for the man in my position to order Jeeves to make himself more comfortable. I was hoping Bunny would rise to the occasion, but he must have been too shy or too distracted to broach the topic. From where I was sitting, though, it was impossible to keep from noticing how Jeeves stood apart.

If it was Raffles at the door, then all was easily forgiven. Nature would work its course, and the situation would speedily solve itself. Jeeves would be at my side in no time. Holmes, too, was highly acceptable, if Raffles wasn’t in arm’s reach. Each of these two lovable meddlers was a key to the ignition, and I was in eager need of one. Hoping against home, I longed with body and soul to hear the sarcasm of one or the other dispensed in greeting to Jeeves.

“Good to see you, Jeeves,” an aged, inoffensive voice said. “Is Holmes here?”

“No, sir.”

“Did he tell you to tell me that?”

“No, sir.”

“Drats. I know that you would tell me if he did.”

“Thank you very much, sir.”

This was a hard pill to swallow. There were giddy butterflies in the stomach, swarming haphazardly around an enormous rock. A mixed blessing, that’s what it was. I was stuck. It wasn’t Raffles. It wasn’t Holmes. It was a sterling associate, and yet not the cavalry.

Bunny, crow’s feet crinkling with optimistic suspicion, rose like a balloon. “Is that—?”

Jeeves voluntarily stepped aside so that Watson had a commanding view of the flat. Watson, too, was greatly surprised to have a vision of the other visitor. “That isn’t—?”

Childlike joy suffused Bunny’s aspect. “John!”

The same joy was reflected on Watson’s bright features. “Why, it is Bunny!”

The next moment, two men about a handful of decades older than me were in the middle of my flat, vigorously shaking hands, clapping shoulders, and exchanging long-winded what-hos. I have hardly described the encounter, and you already are cognizant of exactly what happened. They discussed in short sentences how glad they were to see each other, that each was doing well, that they hadn’t been expecting to meet like this, that they hadn’t seen each other in a dog’s age, and so on. I’ve seen reunions like this at train stations. They’re pleasant, but it’s hard to shake the feeling of not being part of it.

Beyond their statuses as partners and chroniclers of legendary adventurers, Watson and Bunny have some things in common. For instance, they’re both go-with-the-flow kind of chums. They’re awfully polite. They are more stocky than slim. They have more than the normal person’s allocation of empathy. They refrain from drinking too much, and will adopt politically moderate views, if they are ever compelled to adopt any. When an excuse for excitement and danger presents itself, they can take it or leave it. That’s all the similarities I can drum up at present. 

Watson differs markedly from Bunny in the other categories. He is of average height, and he’s average in a lot of other areas, such as his high esteem for tradition, common decency, civility, and the law. Unlike what’s the average, he’s also admirably tolerant about Holmes and company flouting these things, within reason. He has a strong moral compass, one that even Holmes can only manipulate slightly. He is encouraging, caring, and trusty as a steed, and more daring than I care to test. From what I can perceive, it is physically impossible for him to give undue insult. Passersby who spot John Watson in the crowd point to him and say to their colleagues, Look, here is proof that humanity progresses. 

Returning to the visitors making a congenial ruckus in the middle of the living room, Bunny was saying, “The last we heard, you and Holmes were in the United States.”

“So we were,” Watson said. “We’ve only just returned to England this morning. We spent a great deal of time in New York, and California. I tell you, it’s a much larger country than we’re led to believe. It was a very relaxing tour, and I’d love to tell you about our trip, but this reminds me that I haven’t come here on a friendly whim. You see, the strangest thing happened at the dock, which took Holmes straight away from me. Some vagabond artist accosted Holmes, gave him a letter, and ran off. Holmes read it with a fixation, and I could tell at once he was in the throes of some fresh excitement. He said there was no time to waste. He requested that I see that our luggage and I made a safe journey back to our country home, while he took the first train to London on some business. I managed to ask him what it was about, right before he left. His only hint was that he’d been called to prevent the kidnapping of a tall bottle of wine from a young admirer’s cellar.”

“And you immediately thought of Bertie Wooster,” Bunny declared tragically, “and hoped to beat Holmes at his own game for once.”

“How did you know that?” Watson laughed. His heart-warming giggle gave an impression of bashfulness, in the same way that Bunny’s own defeated laugh earlier had done. “Yes, you are right. We’d been talking about him and his man lately. But what on earth are you doing here? Are you acquainted with this young man?”

Feeling that I was quickly becoming the third wheel in this gathering of friends, I was fast on the uptake. “Jeeves and I are lately friends to one and all,” I said. “Isn’t that right, Jeeves?”

Jeeves nodded. “Yes, sir. May I take your hat and coat, Dr Watson?” This formal air of his still needed work. No surprise there.

Watson gave up the goods and thanked Jeeves for the service. A tick or two of the clock later, and then, “Ah!” Watson went halfway through the gesture of snapping his fingers. “That’s right. How foolish of me to forget. There was that little spy mission that Holmes sent you two on. Holmes was very animated about it. That must be how you’ve all met.”

Bunny said, “More or less.”

“Welcome back to the metrop., and all that,” I said to Watson.

“Thank you, Wooster. It’s good to see you again so soon. Bunny, although this is a delightful surprise, I still don’t understand why you are here.”

“Me?” Bunny scratched his neck awkwardly. “I’m afraid it’s for the same reason you’re here. Raffles wasn’t at home when I woke today. He’d left me a note about going away to snatch a wine bottle from a young admirer’s cellar. There was only one person he could have meant, so I gave it a go myself.”

“I take it, then, that Raffles isn’t here?” Believe it or not, Watson was disappointed.

“No. Neither is Holmes.” The sigh Bunny let out was perfectly hopeless. “At least now that you’re here, I know why Raffles has gone, though.”

“Yes,” Watson said, his pity and sympathy for his fellow man pouring all over his shirtfront, “I realise now why Holmes was in so great a hurry.”

I didn’t know what they were talking about. What is more, this not knowing was bad news for me. I’ve seen this kind of thing before, too; it didn’t take a Jeeves to discern that there was something they weren’t saying because they didn’t feel the need to say it. There was inside knowledge, shared by Bunny and Watson, probably created over a spectacular moment of group bonding years ago, which will be forever inaccessible to a new acquaintance who hadn’t been there. It goes with the risk of making friends with otherwise nice people, and then separately making friends with their friends. The consequences can be dire. Worst of all of them is the Inside Joke, often shortened to in-joke. That’s a joke rendered humorous by prior agreement rather than by substance or merit. 

Back at the Drones Club, I pride myself on remaining vigilant against these evils whenever a new member is running the gauntlet. Not all others take this precaution. Therefore, finding myself to be neglected as I was, I was somewhat piqued, though not surprised.

Watson turned to combine me and Jeeves in one very large gaze. “It’s a long-standing affair between Holmes and Raffles,” he said matter-of-factly. “If you’ll let me explain?”

My eyebrows rose. The irritation, too, was lifted. “Oh?” I said, feeling confused, and taken aback. Jeeves was purely interested and attentive.

“Holmes gave you to understand that he was retired. This is true, but misleading, as he very commonly finds himself entangled in the web of some mystery. It’s not uncommon for him to receive letters in extraordinary manners. What is unusual is for Holmes not to have me accompany him, and rarer still, not to tell me the particulars of where he is going or how long he will be gone. Admittedly, that was his habit in his more public years,” Watson emphasized this bit like an old, mostly faded grudge, “but no longer. He’s very good about it now. The exceptions to his mindfulness are few.” Watson cast the sidelong glance at Bunny. “However, his periodic games with Raffles are a big one.”

Bunny didn’t have much in the way of comfort for Watson. His hands spread themselves. “They have fun,” he offered weakly.

“Yes, there’s that. And I do think it’s good for them. Holmes wants the stimulation and the exercise, and it’s lucky that each has a friendly opponent to serve as a fitting rival. It’s certainly not the kind of exercise that Bunny and I care a great deal for. I believe they generally swap puzzles and chase each other through alleys at night. I’m not clear on the details.” 

“In other words,” I edged in, “they are out playing?”

Watson bestowed a kingly smile on me. “Precisely. I couldn’t have put it better myself.”

Bunny mimed his own earlier clapping of Watson’s arm. “Now that we know we can’t do anything about Raffles or Holmes, while you’re here, maybe you’ll help me out?”

The instinctive urge inside Watson to be charitable to all those in need spoke out, apparently before the man himself was aware of what he was saying. “Help you out? Certainly! In what, may I ask?”

“Telling a story. Jeeves and Wooster thought that Raffles and Holmes were friendly since day one. Yes, I told them they were mistaken. In fact, I was beginning to tell them the whole complicated chain of events that led to where Raffles and I are today. I hadn’t got very far, when you came in. You can join me.”

Watson looked again at each person in the room. He took a deep breath, in, then out. Finally, he said, “I’m not so sure that is a good idea.”

Bunny was startled. “No?”

“That was from a time before—” Watson groped for the delicate translation. “Before friendship blossomed,” was what he artistically settled on. He was obviously an expert at delicacy. Had I been a casual contact of his, I could have believed there were only kind and harmless notions circulating in his spotless attic. “I’d never forgive myself if I were to unintentionally say something that offended you.”

Poor Bunny’s balloon popped. The tentative enthusiasm he had been diligently nursing flagged pitifully. His shoulders, already of a rounded style, grew even more rounded in shape as they sunk. “I understand.” 

Neither man was in a happy state about it. Watson was sore to have to upset a pal. Bunny wasn’t sure if he should go on from where he’d left off after all. I, to my discredit, was coming up on empty on things to say. 

That was when a bright, dignified light appeared to shine down on us from the heavens and break through our temporary malaise. “If you will forgive my taking the liberty of making a suggestion, sir?” Jeeves said. There was only one sir, so he must have been specifying Watson. However, I divined that his wisdom was really for both of their sakes.

The other two listened. They were still unhappy. On the other hand, my own spirits soared. This soft outburst of Jeeves’s was a handsome improvement on the coughing. “Go on, Jeeves,” I encouraged without thinking, “we’re all dying to hear what you have to say.”

“I was about to presume to propose, sir,” this was to me, “that Dr Watson elect to contribute to the storytelling, in spite of his respectable qualms. It is my understanding, sir,” this was definitely to Watson, “that memories of shared experiences, be they pleasant or unpleasant, tend to elicit positive sentiments of nostalgia in either case. This is on the condition that the persons involved in the remembered incidents are currently on speaking terms, a condition which appears to hold true in this instance. I have observed this phenomenon displayed by my aunts and uncles, all of whom have, at some time, talked freely and maturely of past disagreements among themselves. Two of my aunts, in remembering a passionate dispute they once entertained over a doll, were amazed and embarrassed that they had ever permitted a toy to come between them.”

“Thank you, Jeeves,” Bunny said.

“You’re welcome, sir.”

In addition, Bunny implored Watson with wide, innocent eyes. That was all he did. He didn’t bother trying to add any argument to the one Jeeves had given. He fathomed correctly that it was no use for him trying to follow up after Jeeves. To do so only waters down the stout blend that came before it.

Watson mulled it over. He pondered. He considered. At last, seeing that he was about to commit himself to a long haul and that there was no way around it, Watson humbly gave in to public demand. “All right,” he said, simultaneously cheerful and grave in defeat. “If I could trouble you for a cigar first? At my age, I only indulge in vices for special occasions. This strikes me as one.”


	3. From the Notes of Dr Watson

Not including the meaningful bounce around the globe that he was to embark on, Watson fancied the rest of that year was relatively normal. That isn’t to say there weren’t some capital cases, like the one concerning Napoleon busts, the so-called Conk-Singleton forgery case that I am very confident Watson never wrote about, or the one with the bridge. Those came afterwards, though. Besides, cases were nothing special. Every year spent in association with Sherlock Holmes was a twelve-month fated to end as the label of a file of cases, tucked away in the large tin box that Holmes hides under his bed. At this time, Holmes was a few summers away from announcing his famously early retirement, and still going strong in his practice of meddling with police business. 

Watson hadn’t yet sold his medical practice, by which I am willing to venture that he meant that he owned a physical building that had dual functions as the place where patients accumulated, and as his house. The business was flourishing, though Watson learnt to close up shop in fifteen seconds flat for those occasions when Holmes peeped in and asked if Watson couldn’t take some time out of his busy schedule to fetch little Pompey from the animal shop and meet Holmes at the corner of Hyde Park in about forty-five minutes, thanks awfully.

Meanwhile, Holmes lived in old, familiar Baker Street, enjoying the fragrance of his chemicals and the appreciating value of the wide assortment of criminal relics that he had beat the Scotland Yard detectives to. That Baker Street flat was good for two people, which is, of course, the fact that motivated Holmes and Watson to go splities on it to begin with. However, Holmes, for some reason, didn’t sublet the room that was once Watson’s. From what I understand, Holmes continued to live in the two-person flat alone. The other bedroom upstairs was kept in straight enough order that Watson could visit and spend the night as needed. Granted, Watson claims to have visited often, but the whole setup doesn’t quite make sense. Holmes must have been too busy to notice the excess of space. Or maybe he shied from the prospect of having to replace all his business cards.

On the whole, Holmes and Watson each gave this state of affairs a solid thumbs up. Holmes gave it an additional thumbs up, amounting to two in total. Watson civilly refrained from doing so. He was glad to be practicing his livelihood, but part of him yearned for the simpler days, when he’d roomed with Holmes in Baker Street and lived off his army pension.

At some point, Watson visited Holmes at the Baker Street address. The visit was not of the variety that are a pleasant diversion carried out in order to avoid doing something unpleasant back home. Rather, Holmes had mysteriously telephoned his pal to come over, and Watson, judging accurately that no further explanation was forthcoming, had jumped to it. On top of this, Watson was already suffering serious concerns for his friend and colleague. To the kind doctor’s dismay, Holmes had been running himself into the ground with constant application of self to cases and to science. He wanted to do science, but there were also cases to be solved. Why not have it all and do both? As a result, Holmes tended to misplace several of his daily quotas of sleep, meals, stretching of the leg muscles, and hours spent in agreeable friendship. But, to be fair, all of this had always been true. It was just a bit increased as of late. Watson was concerned, but he was not Holmes’s wife, and therefore wasn’t banking on changing Holmes, or improving him.

Taking a lesson from Holmes, the first task Watson set to when he arrived was to observe the details of the flat. He used his own key to effect an entrance and to get a good look around. The odorous Baker Street rooms were noticeably cleaner today than in days previous. The logic behind this change was obscure, until he noticed the stuffed luggage kicked to the side. The messiness of the detective’s lifestyle had not been reduced, but, in a very different way, relocated and then condensed into portable-size pockets for easy carrying. Like powdered milk.

Holmes, who was clean in protest to his sloppy flat, manifested after a while and greeted Watson kindly. There was a touching embrace. They expressed several servings of brotherly affection to each other. Old Heppenstall’s sermon on Brotherly Love would have been no use to these devoted chaps. I suppose that they must have patted each other on the back, and what-not. “My dear Watson, how good it is to see you! Would you like a drink to welcome you?”

“My dear Holmes,” Watson replied warmly, “are you leaving on a trip?” This was a reasonable assumption. Englishmen love to travel. It takes many of us only the slightest pretext to start packing. I should know; several of the genus have dragged me along for the undertaking. As one example, there was one individual who felt it necessary to push me along to Monte Carlo. Circumstances compelled me to adopt a position contrary to the journey. I fought bravely against fate. But it was futile, and Jeeves had his way in the end.

“It is a matter of business,” Holmes said. He spoke in an abstract way. “Watson, it is a great inconvenience that there is only one of me.”

“I cannot disagree with you,” Watson said. “But what do you mean by that?”

“Ah, I see that I have begun at the ending. Allow me to begin again at the start. I am a man of science, for whom it is one of life’s greatest pleasures to make fresh headway into the frontiers of modern chemistry, and yet morning after morning I find myself beset by pleas for my assistance in problems of zero academic interest. The former is the more engaging, though I acknowledge that the latter is by far the more lucrative. It is from my work on these dismally mundane cases that I secure these lodgings, and from which I have amassed a small fortune to my credit at the Capital and Counties. I am a poor man, yet as my small fortune steadily grows, I feel the want of detective work less keenly.”

For my fellow fans of Sherlock Holmes who sensibly rank the public good done by Watson’s literature above that done by the light bulb, I will clarify one point. My fellows are possibly scratching their heads and asking themselves, how can Sherlock Holmes be hard up? What about that time Holmes bit a chap for six thousand of the newly printed? This princely transaction occurred in the short story with the priory school, if you want to check the facts. I confronted Watson about it, and he informed me that the priory school thing wouldn’t happen for another year, from the point of view of Holmes in the story. I said that was all right. Then I asked Jeeves what a priory school is. Apparently, it is a school owned or run by Catholic Benedictines. Those are the monks who wear the black hooded habits as a rule, even in summer.

“I fancy that I have, perhaps, earned the right to spend a greater portion of my time and energies in pursuits more congenial to me. It wasn’t all that long ago that I had thought my contributions to the crown completed by my victory of the late Professor Moriarty. I should not have been so surprised to discover that your readership would be so insulted by my exit. However, it is not for them to make us labour eternally. I will be selfish, and choose to live in balance between duty and recreation. All that’s wanted for me is to find a counterpart who will bear some of the intellectual as well as the practical burdens of my investigations, when mysteries are presented to me that I must investigate.”

Watson was grimacing, while Holmes went about juggling the many responsibilities of a national hero desirous of leisure moments. It seemed to Watson that Holmes was betting on a losing horse. There wasn’t another detective living who could match Holmes. It was an absurd idea. Not in accordance with reality. Pure rubbish. Jellied eels have better consistency. Watson waited for Holmes to finish his speech, and then raised the objection. “There is no one who can replace you, Holmes.” Watson gave the subject a few more seconds of careful thumbing-through. “Except, I think, for your older brother Mycroft.”

This sharp insight earned only a shaking of Holmes’s head. “But then there would be no one to replace him in his post in the upper echelons. The British government would collapse. The empire would fall into an unrecognisable state.”

“If that’s true, then won’t that happen anyway when, God forbid, your brother isn’t around anymore?”

Holmes dismissed these irrelevant particulars with a light wave of the hand. “The issue at present is that I need a counterpart,” he said. “This counterpart of mine requires several qualities. He, or she, must be suitably athletic, capable of disguises, clever and resourceful, acquainted with the criminal code, and, above all else, a thrill chaser who loves danger and high stakes for their own sake. A thrill chaser, by nature, can never retire.”

“What about someone who chases thrills of the mind?” Watson asked, thinking of one close friend specifically. “Could such a person ever retire?”

Holmes’s answer came without a second’s delay. “No, not for long. It is impossible. Thrills in all their forms are an addiction hard to shake. Fortunately, the candidate I have selected for my purposes boasts a greater addiction to thrills than anyone else in recent memory.”

“You have a candidate?”

“Yes, I do, and he shows great promise and ability, in spite of his blundering career thus far. And he’s a small time player, which is also bad. I shall discover if he is equal to greater challenges.”

“But who is this dark horse? Do I know him?”

“Neither you nor I know him, Watson, except by reputation.” Holmes steepled his fingers. “I was distantly connected in a case involving him, once. It was shortly following my return to England after my three years away. I hadn’t been home two weeks when a Scotland Yard inspector came to consult me about the infamous scourge of the well-to-do: a burglar who the sensational newspapers would later call the amateur cracksman.”

“Yes, I recollect. A gentleman thief, of all things. Raffles, a hero of cricket! It was quite the scandal. Was that the Scottish inspector who came to see you? I remember his visit. I believed it wasn’t so much a consultation that took place between you two, as it was some kind of argument.”

“It was a consultation.”

“It was unusually heated for a consultation.”

Holmes let it go. “At any rate,” he sighed, “the inspector bungled the job, and only laid his hands on Manders, the amateur cracksman’s accomplice. The master burglar himself was lost at sea, and all went dark about him after the newspapers grew bored and moved on.”

“It was understood that he had perished,” Watson said. “It was a pity that the villain dodged justice. Was your remarkable mystery candidate involved in that case, then?”

An impish grin ill-befitting a man of sophisticated years spoiled Holmes’s sensitive dial. “Intimately,” Holmes said. “You see, I was called in some months ago to assist in the investigation of a suburban crime spree which had been baffling the police for a long time. In the course of my work, I deduced that this string of professional, unmarked crimes could only be the work of a long-time criminal with experience. The culprit was Raffles. He had survived, and was living as a fugitive in the outskirts of London. I confess I found him unexpectedly. The discovery was a consequence of my prudently sending my Irregulars to check in on known criminals in the area, one of whom was Manders. It was very foolish of them to reside in the same house. Unfortunately, I wasted too much time compiling the complete list of crimes for which I could accuse them. It made for a more difficult task than I had anticipated. Before I was finished, they both skipped town.”

“Did they suspect that you were watching them?”

“No. One of my underlings saw them leave to South Africa. They were gone to enlist in the war.”

“Why the devil would they do that?”

Holmes smiled pleasantly. “I honestly have no idea.”

Watson was astonished. When Sherlock Holmes has no idea about something, it comes as a blow. It’s not an altogether painful blow, merely impressive. Partly, the air is pervaded by a sense that the detective before you has matured into somebody more charming and likeable.

“Anyhow, Africa is where they are,” Holmes carelessly slapped a case of luggage, “and thus Africa is where I must go.”

“I don’t understand. You are leaving the country to chase down these two petty burglars?”

“Good old Watson, haven’t you guessed the truth yet?” Holmes laughed. “I am leaving the country to bring back Raffles as the man to replace me in my sphere of criminology!”

At last, the horror struck home. “Holmes!”

“He is a rare stroke of luck,” Holmes hissed excitedly, like a true enthusiast. “He possesses every trait that I am shopping for in a candidate. It is essential that I approach him in person. A single letter written to him, and he will smell a trap, and fly away into obscurity.”

“He is a criminal!”

“Yes, he is a criminal, but he is an extraordinary criminal. His motives are,” he paused thoughtfully, “peculiar.” His sharp eyes, which had lost some of their knife-edged focus a couple of minutes ago, honed in fiercely on Watson. It was a hard, vigorous stare, probably not very comfortable to most coves, without proper context. Watson got the picture, though. He is morality in the flesh, don’t you know. He had a formidable hunch that Holmes staring emphatically at him was a symptom of Holmes weighing Watson against all the other opinions on the table. Holmes continued slowly. “It would be the height of stupidity for me to depend upon any power of mine to alter the man’s fundamental nature. I have had it borne in on me time and again that people are the way they are. A villain is a villain. No man can change another."

“Believe me, I am well aware.”

“If Raffles proves to be another John Clay, then I will see him utterly ruined. If, alternatively, he has the potential to become the British Vidocq, well, I may yet have my own little farm of bees.”

Watson didn’t bother to delve into Holmes’s unhealthy obsession with the bees. There was enough going on. “Fine,” he said.

“Fine—what?”

“I won’t pretend to like this plan, but I can see how important this is to you.”

“Then—?”

“I will go to South Africa, and retrieve this scoundrel for you.”

It was Holmes’s turn to be horrified. “Why—?”

Watson smoothly cut Holmes off for the fifteenth time by dishing more helpings of the Brotherly Love in Holmes’s direction. The long-suffering loyalty act, featuring tender friendship as the opener, had prime billing. A hand rose to comfort a stiff shoulder, the fingers squeezed, and so forth. “This would be too great a strain on you. I’m sure you’ve haven’t noticed, but with your health as depleted it is, you are liable to become ill on the first ship you step foot on. As your physician, I am ordering you to constant bedrest. You will have plenty of opportunity for it. I’ve taken away your excuse for the month.” It pained this walking jug of generosity to see Holmes wearing a sympathetic expression of doubt and guilt mixed together. “Do not worry, Holmes. It will be an easier task for me than for you. The army and I are old companions.”

Of course, that wasn’t the end of it. Although, in another way of looking at it, it was.

* * *

Watson made every effort to not spoil the mission by giving away his reasons for going to Africa. It was equally vital not to snitch on anyone’s secret identity. Watson was prepared to explain to anyone who recognised him that he was acting on behalf of Sherlock Holmes in the office of a private case, and that details of the case were to be omitted in public circles by royal decree. Sadly, the precaution went unused. Nobody cared about who he was or why he was doing what he was doing.

It was a turnabout of splendid proportions, then, when Watson met with the army general who was unknowingly Raffles’s commanding officer to privately confide in him Holmes’s larkish designs. Only, the bloke did know it. He already knew who Raffles was, and how the infamous rascal was freely rubbing elbows with the virtuous infantry. The general was in possession of all the facts. Watson was positively befuddled. 

Then, the general expressed a similar amazement that news of Raffles could have reached Sherlock Holmes over a week or two prior to Raffles revealing himself, and the dark clouds parted before Watson’s eyes. By sheer coincidence, events beyond human control had compelled Raffles to come clean earlier that day. 

It was a deucedly tricky hole for the general to have to take a putter to. Soldiers had his approval, and Raffles was a soldier, and it was hard to give weight to the laws of the civilised world when he contemplated the excellent soldiering that Raffles was doing so well. The general hadn’t yet made a decision re. the fate of Raffles. Feeling indecisive, he had sent Raffles back to the front to fight to stall for more time to mull it over. He would have thrown Raffles up into the sky and made him a constellation, if that were an option.

Watson wasn’t too merry over this. It complicated things considerably. He did his best to assure the general that the illustrious Sherlock Holmes, and his proxy, would be more than happy to take responsibility for fugitive, if only the secret could stay hushed up. Sherlock Holmes had a particular method for doing things, and it was imperative to stick to the script. The general wasn’t too pleased to be made to lose such a fine soldier, but there was nothing else to be done. He gave it the all-clear. In Watson’s view, this was a satisfactory step.

Unhappily, there was another hiccup in the machinery the next day, when Watson finally went looking for Raffles. It was almost a total blowout. Raffles was rumoured to have been done into the dirt by a shootout. Watson was furious. Not livid, since he isn’t capable of it, but at least furious. It rankled him that he should have come all this way and endured special hardships not fit for public consumption, only for Raffles to kick the bucket and ruin everything for all involved.

Watson found the unmoving bed of shrapnel named Raffles lying near the other wounded. The blatantly ginger-dyed strands of hair on his head made him easy to keep track of. The shortage of medicos meant Raffles was last on everyone’s list to be bothered about. To an old army surgeon like Watson, the solution was obvious. He pulled on the gloves. I didn’t try to follow all the medical dialect that Watson shoved in, and I didn’t really want to, so that’s all I have to say about it. The crucial takeaway, if there is any, is that Watson saved Raffles. 

When that was done, Watson’s already bad mood ended even worse. I couldn’t blame him. Saving Raffles is enough to ruin anyone’s day. Still, his day’s labours weren’t over. Watson went prowling for the accomplice, Manders, who was not with the wounded, despite having been wounded. Not having been long in the neighborhood, Watson was driven to ask around for directions. He was politely pointed to the tent where Manders was sulking, a help to no one.

Initially, Manders was in too rough a shape to do anything but complain. After Watson made his role in Raffles’s recovery clearer, Manders was so sickeningly grateful that Watson gave up. There was always tomorrow. Watson left him.

Tomorrow rolled round. Watson’s bad mood hadn’t improved, yet he went to look for Manders again. Manders was stunningly mobile, all things considered. A real go-getter with the crutches. In the after-surgery tent, Watson stumbled into a scene already in progress. Manders was talking quietly, and anxiously, to Raffles. Raffles was either listening or not listening. He was detached. Melancholy. Temperamental, in summary. 

Watson knew better than to expect much in the way of a response from the silent article. Possibly Raffles was crabby on the grounds of his chest injury, and a few other injuries, not least of at all to his ego, Watson supposed. Manders, however, had only eaten justice in the leg and seemed to be feeling life briskly, so it was to Manders that Watson spoke. “May I have a word with you, outside?”

Strictly speaking, they were outside. Tents are no substitute for wood and plaster, and brick, if the economy is good. Manders was smart enough to grasp that Watson was telling him to mince outside the tent and have a conversation at a distance from nosy ears. They did so.

Something about Manders had changed overnight. He ceased to look on Watson as the sacred idol of the village, handed down gingerly through the generations. Bunny’s morose countenance and stride partook of the ideal of sadness, as Jeeves said the Greeks would have put it. “What do you want with us?” He said this with a humid air of heavy pessimism. 

Watson frowned. “You were more appreciative of me yesterday.” Not the nicest greeting to give a chap. Watson was in a bad mood. “Would you rather I not have saved your crooked friend?”

Manders stood straight as an iron rod. “Raffles wanted to die for his country. Now he doesn’t get to. Instead, they’ll lock him up behind bars. What kind of life is that, for a spirited man like him?”

A life behind bars was a crumby life for any man, Watson thought, but he moved on. “He knew what he was signing up for when he broke the law, disturbed the peace, and stole from others for personal amusement. He violated the sanctity of people’s homes. He was a blackguard.”

On the strength of that beefy quip, the argument was settled before it ever had a chance to pick up speed. Manders took Watson’s hit like a man. He grimaced, said nothing, and went on being sad. Deep down, Watson didn’t like to make a man wallow in sadness. It was especially unpleasant when the sadness was felt for the sake of someone else’s misfortunes. Still, these were cold-hearted thieves he was talking about.

“Now,” Watson said, “perhaps if you will be good enough to finally listen to what I have come to tell you, you’ll realise that there exists a once-in-a-lifetime chance for Mr Raffles to make a positive contribution to society, outside of the war effort.”

Manders did listen. It made for an agreeable change of pace.

Watson steeled himself. “There is a detective in London who has been keeping tabs on you and Mr Raffles for months,” he said. “Make no mistake, he would have had you two arrested, if you hadn’t fled the country. Since then, he’s changed his mind. He sees potential for Mr Raffles to reform, and to solve crimes instead of enacting them. He would be placed in a position from which he might redirect his energies into more lawful channels.” It was somewhat trying for Watson to give this speech when he didn’t have any faith in Raffles himself. He did his best. “In an indirect sense, Mr Raffles can work for the state.”

To his credit, Manders had listened. Having thus listened to what sounded like certified poppycock, he had earned the privilege of staring at Watson incredulously. Manders didn’t outright call him a loony, but the feeling was there. “Are you in earnest?”

“I wish that I wasn’t.” Watson took a deep breath. “Regardless, this is a genuine offer. You should look on it as a gift from the gods. When I was sent, it was before you and Mr Raffles had given yourselves up. The purpose of my coming here was to convince him that this is not a trick, to prevent him from trying to escape. However, now that his secret is half-blown and the threat of prison hangs over him, I don’t have to be very persuasive about it. Either Mr Raffles returns to London with me, a relatively free man, or he returns in the brig. The detective I’m representing has made every arrangement. He has connections in high places. If Mr Raffles is up to his standard, then justice can be,” Watson groaned a little, and struggled to say, “postponed. The choice is up to him, and to you. What you decide makes no difference to me.”

Manders was quiet. This was buckets of information for him to take in, and he needed to process it. After a while, he asked, “Who is this mad detective?”

Watson fought back the urge to let out a smug, boastful smirk. This part of introducing himself always pumped him up with pride. “Mr Sherlock Holmes.”

The impact was exactly as desired. Manders reeled. “The Baker Street detective?” It really is a funny thing that Holmes is so widely known by his address. I can’t imagine that Watson was showing Bunny a business card to prompt him to say this, and yet Bunny was likely no greater than an inch of willpower away from adding the two-two-one-B to the mixture. Everyone pairs up Sherlock Holmes with the Baker Street flat. The monarchy and Buckingham Palace envy the strength of the connection. 

Watson just barely resisted laying the pride on thick. “That’s right.”

The buckets of information that Manders was expected to process were being heedlessly stacked one on top of the other into an incomprehensible pyramid of data. “I can’t believe it,” he said to himself, “this must be joke. This can’t be real.” Sudden insight and comprehension sacked Manders in the face. “Oh! You said your name is Watson. You must be Dr John Watson, the writer!”

“Yes,” Watson said, and in another moment he would have reluctantly launched into the reasoning for why Sherlock Holmes would have sent his biographer to go hunting for up-and-coming interns in South Africa, when Manders took the floor ahead of him. 

“So that’s why you’re so angry,” Manders muttered. It was sardonic, as opposed to shy.

Watson blinked three times. He didn’t follow. His anger teetered on the brink of losing its balance. Confusion had jostled it. “What?”

“You’re completely lost without Holmes.” The accusation from his criminal doppelganger came at Watson sharply and head-on. “You’re missing him!”

Watson froze. The anger toppled over the fence and cracked loudly into white fragments. He couldn’t believe it. Though Manders had said the above merely to mock him, that didn’t change the uncomfortable fact that the observation was scientifically precise and without error.

Two weeks ago, Holmes had flagrantly disobeyed Watson’s order for bedrest in order to wave the fellow a genial goodbye from the safety of the platform at the train station. Holmes’s fond, tired smile had, ironically, filled Watson with the energy to pursue the nonsense journey ahead of him. Watson cherished the memory of his best friend’s top-hatted, hand-waving silhouette fading away romantically in the offing. That’s romantic in the melodramatic style, by the way, not the lovey-dovey style. The lovey-dovey definition wouldn’t have made sense.

In a way, Watson thought, it was all pretty rummy. Holmes was perpetually busy, and living the dream of the doctor lifestyle was tying Watson down. They hadn’t spent enough time together lately. This Africa business wasn’t helping the situation very much.


	4. The Title Becomes Relevant

Watson took a five minutes recess.

It was becoming trickier to avoid confronting the problem regarding Jeeves standing off to the side, dignified yet aloof. I’m not confrontational by birth, but I didn’t like the arrangement. If there was a time and place where the troops could have improved the general welfare, this was it. Holmes and Raffles, the shirkers, were both missing their cues to make their grand appearances on stage centre right. Bunny had poured in, and then Watson had poured in, in good form and on schedule. They had left the bar too high. Their associates had failed to reach half the requisite standard. They hadn’t shown up. 

The Woosters are not made of straw. When it comes to letting a pal down, the Wooster motto is: don’t do that. “Jeeves,” I said bravely. I was going to give Jeeves the leg up. The chest inflated itself, by measures. 

The craving to meet the needs of gentry and spread peace of mind worldwide coloured Jeeves a vigorous hue. “Yes, sir?” 

It was too tough. The chest deflated. The shoulders slumped. I’d been going well for a short period, but I had got the distinct impression that Jeeves was too good for me. “Do you have any insight as to when Holmes or Raffles will breach the home?” I asked, my tones dropping to woeful. “I know it may be reaching to probe you about it. I am convinced that it is no reflection on your intelligence, Jeeves, if their whereabouts elude you as well as the rest of us. Their riddle is apt to be an Inside Joke, or in-joke. You cannot have all the necessary brass tacks.”

“Not at all, sir,” Jeeves said. “If it is your wish that I do so, I may easily ascertain as to when Mr Holmes and Mr Raffles intend to arrive. It would be no trouble for me to bring the question to them, and to relay to you their answering information.”

I gawked like a halibut. 

Watson was pleasantly impressed. “Incredible.”

“We should have known it,” Bunny declared, by way of adding to the verbal applause. Jeeves appreciated the kudos. 

“But how?” I staggered to ask. I don’t typically ask for the annotations. I let Jeeves do his thing, and he lets me do mine. This happened to be an extreme case of Jeeves turning impossible tasks into trifles. “All the lines of communication available to us have been closed by the other ends.”

Jeeves was unfazed by the difficulty. “I am apprised of the present location of the gentlemen. To my knowledge, there are no barriers preventing my approaching them, sir.”

“Can you tell us where they are?” Watson asked.

Jeeves turned to him. “As it has been indicated by you and Mr Manders that the aforementioned gentlemen are in the process of playing a game, though the guidelines of the game are unknown to me, it would not occur to me to act or speak in such a manner that hazards the risk of violating the spirit of play. However, if it is insisted upon, I am indeed capable of sharing their location.”

Watson wasn’t for it. He backed down. “No,” he exhaled lightly, “never mind.”

I advanced, “Can you bring them a note? Or will that also put a damper on the entertainment?”

“I would be gratified to bring them a note, sir.”

“Wonderful!” I sidled to my writing desk and penciled a hasty line or two on the first sheet of loose paper I found. I did feel that the paper was too big for my purposes, yet I had already committed myself. I was writing a gentle reminder to the reader that he’s putting Bertram out to dry. Smart apples like he surely know that Jeeves lets the figurative tie loose (emphasis on figurative) only in the company of particular go-getters. Wouldn’t the benevolent reader kindly tell Jeeves to forget that class distinction stuff and relax the stiff spine a bit in the presence of caring and concerned friends? I dotted this plaintive script, folded the sheet a whole bunch, and gave it to Jeeves. “For the eyes of Holmes or Raffles,” I said meaningfully, “or possibly a socialist, if you meet one on the way.”

He accepted the parcel. There wasn’t even the bashful beginnings of a furtive glance down at it. “Yes, sir. I shall return shortly. Please be at liberty to continue the narrative in my absence,” he said to Watson and Bunny, “as it is impossible to predict the precise length of time my errand will entail.” Most chaps who spin around to totter away get held up in the middle by a sort of adjustment period between the twirling, and the walking, and the decency not to fall in the transition. Jeeves passed over this nuisance. He simply spun around and strode out the door, which he also opened and closed, as if it were ordained by nature.

So, Jeeves was gone. From his seat by the window—we were all sitting—Bunny said, “The man is really something.”

“Very singular,” Watson agreed. “A rare treasure. It’s no wonder that Holmes suspected him of secret evil, at the start.”

“Did he?” Bunny droned. “That’s a riot.”

“Yes, Holmes considered him to be eminently fascinating. They could talk for hours on the most esoteric topics. They did, once or twice. Holmes was very interested in the man’s method of using psychology to solve social squabbles.”

“Did you know that Jeeves was pageboy in the Albany when Raffles lived there, too?”

“Oh,” Watson drawled, “was he really?”

“More than a pageboy, to be exact. Raffles gave him assignments sometimes. Trusted him with some fetching and some scouting. Taught him everything about the underworld business that he wasn’t already born knowing. I never saw him, personally.”

“He’s a superior valet as well as a skilled thief, then. He’s a marvellous asset.”

“And an altruistic fellow.”

“A fine young man.”

“Not a fault in him.”

“Absolutely topping,” I pitched in.

I suppose something I said disrupted the dragging reverie. Watson and Bunny expressed surprise to discover that I was still present. They looked upon me with unexpectedly troubled gazes. Their dismal demeanours were perfectly mirrored and altogether out of touch with the broad view that we were holding this gathering of friends on a voluntary basis for the purposes of merriment and frivolity. 

Then they dropped it. Watson took a drink, and Bunny filled the latent air by taking up that storytelling wheeze again.

Last we had left off, Watson and Bunny were in Africa, Raffles was also in Africa, and Holmes was in some other place. In the task of bunging Raffles and Bunny onto a ship without accidentally letting them slip through the fingers and into the ocean, Watson enjoyed the assistance of some of the army general’s spare men. The army regiment was sad to surrender so beloved a soldier, and doubly hurt to have to give up its leading patsy at the same time. Bunny was the butt of all their best jokes, and they foresaw the remote chances of finding a stand-in to match him. Be that as it may, they made the gallant sacrifice.

On the ship, Bunny heard it from Watson that Sherlock Holmes would be at the dock to welcome them back to the homeland. From this carefully worded message, Bunny appreciated the charitable tip that Holmes would have constables ready at his fingertips to swarm in and seize the contraband if either Raffles or Bunny thought it sensible to make a run for it.

Raffles wasn’t talking to anyone. Bunny couldn’t decide how much of this reticence could be blamed on the injury, and how much was due to Raffles being an ass. Bunny and Watson had taken separate stabs at apprising Raffles of exactly how delicately he was situated, but there was nothing doing as long as the bounder stayed mute. He stayed in bed mostly, and turned his nose up with great indignation at Bunny and Watson in the single instance when they teamed up to offer pencil and paper.

Sherlock Holmes’s doctor companion irritated Bunny less now than previously. For one thing, familiarity breeds mutual liking, or so Jeeves has told me, and they were stuck on a ship. Plus, Watson was a character of superb renown, chronicler and accessory to the side of good. Bunny wasn’t in the mood to be starstruck, but he was curious how the other half lived. As it was, so far removed from being Watson’s pal, he didn’t plan on making anything of it, until Watson himself made the first overture. 

“You must have had a good reason for coming all this way to be shot in the leg,” Watson said, “particularly in light of the thriving concern you left back home.”

The unmotivated observation startled Bunny. Watson had approached him in the cabin loaned out to Raffles and Bunny. Raffles was certainly there, and it ought to have been obvious to the meanest intelligence that Raffles was asleep. Nevertheless, Bunny answered, softly. “I came with Raffles.”

“I understood that much.”

“Raffles is a first-class patriot,” Bunny asserted. “He loves his country. He once pinched a priceless gold cup and posted it to the queen. Is it so unbelievable that he would devote himself to a noble English cause, and that I would be honoured to back him up on it?” Yes, I double-checked; the noble cause whatsit Bunny was referring to was the war in Africa.

“You are saying that you followed this lunatic to Africa because you wished to back him up? Did he tell you to?”

“No, he didn’t, but I wasn’t about to let him go alone. He is my friend.”

“And all this sounds totally reasonable to you? Do you lack a will of your own?”

“That’s big talk,” Bunny retorted with unflinching verve, “coming from the man who travelled to Africa to do a telegram’s job for the sake of his own insane friend.”

Briefly, Watson was stymied. He had been accused of hypocrisy, and the foundation on which the charge rested was solid. Naturally, when one is accused of hypocrisy, one immediately rejects the slightest chance that one has erred as implicated, and makes legendary efforts to explain the extenuating circumstances. Watson said, “It was essential that I come.”

“How so?”

“Holmes did not trust Raffles would be swayed by a written appeal. I volunteered to go in his stead, and save him from risking any further strains upon his health that such a journey might cause him.”

“And that asinine mission gave you the impression of being totally reasonable?” Bunny demanded. “Do you lack a will of your own?”

Watson was beat. There was no denying it. All the facts pointed straight at the unpleasant truth that neither he nor Bunny had a will of his own.

A brief duration of silence ensued. Doctor and thief studied one another with new eyes. At some point, when they hadn’t been paying enough attention, their feelings had shifted. They were comrades in arms. Headlights on the bonnet of an automobile could not be more aligned than their sentiments. Each man perceived in his double a fellow sufferer of common troubles and burdens. There was a shared epiphany that each had wronged the other in his ideas of the other. In the midst of the quiet, it was tacitly recognised that conclusions had been jumped to too readily. The other man wasn’t all that bad, once the conspicuous flaws on the surface were dug past to reveal the prized gem underneath. He, too, had gone to great lengths on slim and absurd pretexts, for ends that were batty and contrived.

Bunny, defying all bets, beat Watson to the punch of working up the courage to speak. “You care about him a great deal, don’t you?” he said thoughtfully. “This Sherlock Holmes.”

“As much as you care about A. J. Raffles, I think,” Watson’s most sentimental voice replied.

“Ha.” A smothered style of snicker communciated Bunny’s skepticism. “I doubt that’s possible.”

Watson smirked knowingly. “If you do, then I don’t.” 

Bunny was shocked by this. He was astonished. He gaped open-mouthed at Watson. Then Watson gambled a compassionate smile in reply, and business was squared away. They were on the same page. This exchange cemented their kinship, for some reason or other.

Don’t write to me asking what they meant by any of the immediately preceding. I can’t tell you. You’ll only be wasting your time. It’s clear that it’s inside information. Forbidden to hopeful neophytes, and all that. It’s a grisly menace. There ought to be a law against it.

While they did not for a second give up the dignity and comportment befitting British gentlemen, in every other sense, all hesitation and sensitivity between them was thrown to the wind. Here was a fellow who could understand. Here was a chap who would listen.

They went right to it. Bunny tripped over himself to regale episodes marking moments when Raffles had engaged in extraordinary behaviours calculated to baffle the intellect and vex the nerves. Watson was all anxiety to list his grievances with Holmes, such as the shooting of initials into walls and taking on more cases than was sensible. Faults were tallied and held up against one another, so too were coping strategies. Boring, run-of-the-mill adversities such as writing and publishing were ignored and skipped over in favour of remembrances of the faults of their partners. Cryptic stakeouts spent waiting up for whistles and snakes, or the pinching of unsaleable gold cups in broad daylight, were discussed.

The conversation got away from them and took on a life with its own. They had come prepared with portfolios of repressed gripes, and herein was the cornerstone on which the whole structure would rest. However, over the course of the minutes, the complaints lost ground, and modest expressions of affection steadily gained acceptance. Holmes was anarchic with walls and communal living spaces, but he did straighten up the wreckage whenever Watson asked. Raffles was a toad at frequent intervals, but he did recall all the poetry Bunny had written as a lad for the school magazine. Fondness and fraternal-like love entered their hearts. Believe it or not, Watson and Bunny actually discussed these very extraneous issues at length.

Afterwards, a blasting honk from the ship woke up Bunny and Watson. This was a profound source of confusion for both men, in passing, since it implied that they were asleep directly beforehand. Watson gradually registered that he was still in the criminals’ cabin, and divine inspiration told Bunny that they had together fallen asleep in their chairs just when the soul-baring dialogue was at its peak. They struggled upright, and recollected their bearings. The prolonged toot of the horn that had stirred them was known to be the prophesier of imminent landfall, which was highly welcome news. One of the greatest joys of travel is returning to one’s home an exhausted, sleep-deprived wretch in need of soft pillows, kicked-off shoes, and a day and a half of the dreamless. A vision of land poured in through a tiny window to rain down on them them bonny promises of fixed, unmoving ground.

On the other hand, it was shortly brought to Bunny’s attention that they had hit something of a snag. The information got to him via something Watson said, or exclaimed. To put it in one way, the three horrified words shouted by Bunny’s new friend—if friend was the proper term for a chap to bestow upon a well-wishing sympathiser—weren’t about the top bunk in the cabin being empty. It was true that the top bunk was empty, but that was no surprise. If anything, it was completely unremarkable. The top berth, by process of elimination rather than by Bunny’s choice, had been designated as Bunny’s. Bunny’s movements and whereabouts were sufficiently well accounted for, so there was no problem.

The problem was that Raffles had escaped.

* * *

Such was life. It has its ups and its downs. Bunny and Watson had to make the best of things. They were back in the land of their ancestors. It wasn’t perfect, but there were worse lands they could be in. 

Let’s jump ahead to the moment of their crossing the bridge from the wilderness of the ship to the civilised noise of English society. The long trip across the Atlantic was behind them. The ship and its flags were over and done with. The ship won’t feature in the plot again. You may cast it from your mind.

Before you do that, though, one thing. You might have found it a bit dubious that Raffles was so quickly declared by Watson to have escaped the seacraft, when it was more likely that he was strolling along the upper decks whistling a jaunty tune, enjoying his freedom to move about the ship and feeling all eagerness to meet the deerstalker-hatted triple-pipe-smoker about to cut him in on a good deal. If you did find it a bit dubious, then congratulations; you took hold of thin threads of a subtle discrepancy which one of the two men who were there, Bunny, completely overlooked.

Bunny appreciated immediately that possibilities were reduced to the certainty that Raffles had taken flight. Raffles was an expert at taking flights. It was what he had made a living doing. One always does what one is good at, and Raffles, being an idiot of the finest grade, had said nuts to the honest living offered by Holmes and zipped off.

Watson, however, could have had misgivings about the evidence pointing to villainous escape rather than topside carolling. He didn’t know as well as Bunny did that Raffles was an idiot. What convinced him so soundly that Raffles had escaped, then, was not the empty space framed by the drawn curtains of the lower bunk, but a handwritten missive on the table. The report contained many words including, among others, escape.

The memorandum was addressed to Bunny. Nobody cared. Watson and Bunny both read it instanter. Its contents advised Bunny to cooperate with the detective and his assistant. Although it was rummy to have to leave behind a pal for the second time, it went on to say, it was even less likely now than in previous years that Bunny could make the nontrivial swim to shore, what with Bunny’s dignified leg wound and all. And the Royal Gold Cup, it added in heavy strokes, while not being saleable, had looked heavenly on their mantelpiece and was daily missed. At the bottom of the note was a four-lined stanza of poetry that Bunny quickly slammed a hand over to cover up.

Watson remarked that the delicate penmanship was that of a woman’s. Had Raffles a female accomplice, to whom the note had been dictated? But a freshly dejected and humbled Bunny said that he recognised the handwriting, and no, it belonged to Raffles all right. 

All right, that’s all the important bits from the ship scene. Now you can cast it from the mind.

Even so, rest for the weary was not to be had at the pier. As Watson was herding Bunny and a trolley of luggage through the docks, Bunny stopped cold. He had caught glimpse of the last person he had expected to see.

“Raffles!” he gasped. Heedless of Watson’s opinions on this, Bunny barrelled a hundred feet or so straight ahead, into a clean-shaven man of refinement with a top hat and a walking stick. Like an affectionate wife coming home to her husband after the long lecture tour abroad, you might say. Excitement seized Bunny, and he shook the man by the arms. “Raffles,” he laughed, “this is too absurd! You look marvellous. Did you go through the trouble of escaping merely to surprise us with nice clothes and a neat haircut?”

“Thank you for the compliment. My doctor prescribed me several hours a day of beauty rest. It is interesting to learn that A. J. Raffles and I should resemble one another.” The man smiled warmly. “Good afternoon, Mr Manders. I have been looking forward to meeting you.”

This didn’t sound too auspicious to Bunny. He staggered back in a daze. “You’re not Raffles,” he whispered. His gaiety was cruelly dashed. Today wasn’t going well for him.

“Excellent deduction,” the man praised. “Permit me to contribute one of my own. A. J. Raffles has escaped Dr Watson’s custody, and you are all that remains of his spoils from Africa. Have you been treating the good doctor well? It may go far with me if you have.”

“Holmes!” Watson said, arriving on cue. It was his turn to do the long-separated wife routine. The sight of Holmes was a joy in itself to Watson. In lieu of the married kiss, Watson shook Holmes by the mitten. “I cannot tell you how glad I am to see you!”

“Your every step does that quite adequately,” Holmes replied. “I am likewise delighted to have you returned to me. How was Africa? I understand that the country is currently enjoying its autumn. How was the weather?”

“The weather?” Watson worked to remember. “Um, it was fine.”

This news was pleasing to Holmes. “Wonderful. Now, Mr Manders,” his chin tipped downwards to the shell-shocked asset, “I do not doubt that your journey has exhausted you, but we must settle down to business at once, or it will take me that much longer to locate Mr Raffles.”

Bunny couldn’t believe this man. “Doesn’t it bother you that he has run away?”

“I had thought it somewhat probable that he would.”

It was impossible for Bunny to discern if this was stated in compliment to Raffles, or in insult.

“Ah, you did?” Watson breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness.”

“But the police,” Bunny argued hopelessly, “surely the English Channel has been lined with them?”

“No,” Holmes said. “I have very kindly not placed the constabulary in the awkward position of knowing that there is a fugitive at liberty. Moreover, the police of Southampton are less familiar to me than are the venerable lot at Scotland Yard. You did apply the glue, did you not, Watson?””

“Glue?” Bunny felt himself shrinking from the conversation with every passing utterance.

Watson nodded eagerly. “Yes, I did.”

“Have any of your personal belongings been misplaced?”

“Why, yes, now that you mention it,” Watson said, markedly less eagerly. “The troublemaker has taken my pocket money and my keys.”

“Then there is nothing to fear. I know where he has gone.”

“That is incredible, Holmes. How can that be? Do you expect he will target my home?”

“No, I am inclined to think not, unless you happened to inform him of where it is you live. If he makes the mistake of targeting the address from one of your calling cards, he will only be wasting his time; before your departure, I took the precaution of replacing the calling cards in your luggage with replicas advertising a private practice on a nonexistent street. On the contrary, there is only one place in all of England which he knows is perfectly ripe for the picking, and of which he knows the true address.”

Watson’s eyes shined with worshipful admiration. “But wherever could that be?”

“My dear Watson, is my plan not obvious?” Holmes laughed. “Everyone in the world knows my address!”

Bunny gaped in horror. It was too much. A real landslide. This was the frozen limit, he thought. This cove was clean off his rocker. Completely bananas. I’m not ashamed to admit that I was hit with the same impression. A sane man does not make arrangements to have his own home burgled in his absence. On the other hand, I began to glimpse the strong reasons Holmes had for not leaving Baker Street and taking up more appropriate digs elsewhere. It makes him a burglar magnet.

Meanwhile, Watson the Enabler was in the vein of being swept away by his friend’s dazzling chain of logic. “Brilliant,” he said gamely. “You have laid a trap for him!”

“Yes, of sorts,” Holmes said. “But it is imperative to my carefully-laid plans that not a moment is lost in following him.”

“Then we shall go at once.”

“One moment. Mr Manders and I will go. The only place you and your trunks are going, old friend, is home.”

Watson was so dismayed by this that he lost an inch or two in height. “Can I not come with you?”

But Holmes had spoken in kindness. He administered the old fraternal touch to Watson’s shoulder to reassure Watson of his value to the team. “I should like very much to have you, but you are worn. I cannot say with certainty how long the hunt for Raffles will last, and it would be too cruel of me to keep you from rest, after all you have done on my behalf. Please, go and have your very well-deserved lie-down.”

“Are you certain? You know that I am no stranger to fatigue.”

“It is not necessary. You may trust me to see to the remainder of this experiment on my own. Manders will kindly fill the role of notetaker, if and when I decide I am in need of one. I doubt that Manders will misbehave himself when I am alone with him.” Holmes turned a frighteningly innocent, trusting smile onto Bunny. “I doubt very much that you and I will have any trouble.”

Terror compounded efficiently upon horror. Technically speaking, Bunny was about two months and an aching leg more worn than Watson was, and he longed for a holiday of his own. Not to mention, some of the luggage was his. It didn’t matter. Bunny’s bargaining chips in this negotiation were severely wanting in size and number. Though he wouldn’t betray Raffles to save his own life, Bunny wasn’t in a hurry to earn Holmes’s ire.

Watson was touched by Holmes’s concern. “Very well,” he said firmly. “Good hunting.”

The metaphor implicit in Watson’s enthusiastic encouragement went poorly with Bunny. He frowned quietly.

The pilgrimage from Southampton to Baker Street is a trip doomed to take somewhere in the ballpark of two hours, as the American would say. For the uninitiated, the ballpark is where the American father takes his young son to watch baseball and eat tragic food. The majority of this two-hour journey is necessarily spent in a train. From his abundant past experience with a chap of Holmes’s proud stamp, Bunny knew before they ever reached the station that Holmes would be securing a first-class cabin. Bunny could not avoid sharing confined space with the world’s greatest detective, face to face and sans any saving distractions. If Holmes only spent the duration needling Bunny with the painful guilt and shame of his immoral crimes, Bunny would consider himself having got off with the equivalent of a light tsk-tsk.

Here’s what happened instead: in the cab, at the station, and in the train, Holmes was pensive and silent. He pretended Bunny wasn’t there, and he did it convincingly. He made ignoring Bunny look like a walk in the park.

Still, Bunny couldn’t pretend he wasn’t there, so it made for a dashed uncomfortable train ride. He was anxious for himself, and also for Raffles. Everything that was happening to them was confusing and in juvenile defiance of sound judgement. It taxed the nerves, in the long run. “Why did you let Raffles escape?” Bunny blurted out after twenty minutes of biting his cheek and bouncing his knee. “Have you set a trap?”

Holmes’s eyes briefly came alive again. The detective took a break from his contemplation business to answer Bunny. “London itself is my trap. I own every street, every thoroughfare. If he enters my city, the result becomes inevitable. I shall have him.”

Bunny couldn’t help grimacing. Though he was apprehensive to do so, Bunny spoke his mind anyway. “That is ludicrous,” was what his mind firmly was. “What is all of this about?”

“Crime is commonplace,” Holmes said. “Your friend is less commonplace. He has rare ability, and rare patriotism. There may yet be a use for him. Even though he has thus far wasted his talents on petty crime, I suspect that he has at last exhausted any exhilaration that crime can give him. What was once recreational sport for him has become only base thievery. Possibly you have also deduced this truth for yourself? I am curious to see if the thrills that the side of justice can offer will be enough for him to make the Herculean effort to lift his spiritual balance out of the red and into the black. It would take the rest of his life for him to repay his debt to society, but it may be possible. At any rate, I am prepared to put him to the test.”

“I’ve never heard of such a test being tried before,” Bunny muttered.

“Then you should make a greater study of the history of criminology. There is nothing new under the sun.” Holmes scrutinised Bunny closely. “I am aware that you once served a sentence for your guilt as his accomplice. Tell me, if I gave you the choice, would you stay with Raffles, or would you walk away?”

It was an insult to even be asked the question. Bunny scoffed mildly. “Raffles and I are one.”

“Is that so,” Holmes murmured wistfully to himself.

“What about Raffles?” Bunny blurted again. “If he agrees to work for you, will he still have to spend time in prison?”

“We shall see.” Holmes stared off into the wallpaper and slipped back into not talking. 

The sentiment crushed Bunny like a ton of bricks. He hadn’t wanted to hear Holmes say that. The road of the future stretching before him into the great blue yonder, formerly too obscured to describe, now seemed bitter, bleak, and littered with regretful, broken-down petrol stations. For once, Bunny wished that he and Raffles were still fighting in South Africa. It was awful, to be sure, but at least he and Raffles were able to be together.

Bunny had learnt long ago that anything could happen, and not to make too many assumptions. Therefore, when he and Holmes were finally at the Baker Street flat, Bunny steeled himself against his own cold sweat and the shaking of his hands. Raffles might be in, or the Prime Minister, or both Raffles and the Prime Minister, or there was some other burglar inside robbing the flat and there was no connection. Anything was possible. Either way, it was no use worrying about it in advance.

Holmes slipped in his key, twisted the knob, and stepped over the famous threshold. “If you would be so good not to dilute the evidence by walking around too much,” he said sweetly to Bunny. Then, without bothering to take in a panoramic view of the room first, Holmes brandished a magnifying glass and buried his nose into the floor.

“Victory,” Bunny sarcastically cheered the detective on, echoing the company motto featured in many cherished memories. To this motto, Raffles had sometimes added Portland Bill or Wormwood Scrubs as victory’s alternative, but Bunny had spent eighteen months living off thinned-out oatmeal in the latter, so he dropped it. Peering inside, he decided that the legendary flat lived up to the reputation Watson gave it as an exemplary mess. A caseless violin and its bow sat on the armchair. There was a deal-topped, chemical-splattered table rich in mineral deposits. The jackknife transfixing letters into the mantelpiece was doing more damage to the mantelpiece than any gold cup ever did.

“Your friend was sensible enough not to leave many obvious traces of his intrusion,” Holmes said. “However, my glue mixtures have outsmarted him.”

Whatever mixture that was, Bunny, thought, ought to have been principally used in an effort to repair some of the cracks that formed web-like designs issuing from one wall’s series of bullet holes. “What do you mean?”

Holmes tapped a few jars sitting on the ruined table as he passed by it. “I gave Watson instructions to secretly paste thin resins mixed with coloured soils onto different positions on Raffles’s shoes. The resin hardens, and then wears away over the course of the day. Specks of coloured soil are deposited in the footsteps. I perceive from these patterns of soil traces that Raffles carried out a thorough search here.”

“What for?” Bunny asked, ambivalently. Without realising it, he crept forward to better watch Holmes.

“Yes,” Holmes hummed, “what will he do? His search begins here. He leads with the right hand and the left leg. What was he looking for? The billfold? No, by Jove, it’s here, and moved an inch! The deposit slips? No, those are untouched. He went to the mantelpiece. He examined the pipes. He moved to the bedroom, thumbed through the coats, left several hair strands on the floor, and he took—” Holmes’s prowling was cut short. He was abruptly fixed in place by forces unseen as he’d bent to check the contents of his dressing table. Something smart had clicked neatly in his mind. He was stunned.

In Bunny’s opinion, Holmes being stunned was a fortunate improvement on conditions. “He played a joke at your expense, didn’t he?” Bunny snickered. “What did he take, your deerstalker?” 

Holmes’s face widened, slowly, eerily, into a delighted mess of a smile. “Why, yes,” he said. “He has taken my deerstalker, my inverness coat, and the black hair dye.”


	5. Raffles Makes a Bloomer

While the unlikely team of Holmes and Bunny was busy not finding Raffles at Baker Street, Watson was just returning home. True, the old bean didn’t have his usual key, but luckily Holmes possessed a double, and this double had been cheerfully lent to Watson. Using it, Watson encountered no difficulties in entering the domicile, which he was very thankful for. He couldn’t put off carrying the luggage inside forever, though, and that was a stickler. He’d have to call in a favour with one or two of the neighbours for assistance in that. Those favours were valuable, don’t you know. Worth their weight in pounds.

As he crossed the familiar dividing line, however, Watson picked up the telltale sounds of the scooting of a chair. There was light on, too, leaking out of the fixtures in the entrance hall and somewhere past the opened door of the study. The window shutters were up to prevent ill-intentioned pedestrians from taking notice of said light pollution.

It was no stupendous leap for Watson to assume that he was in the process of clumsily interrupting a robbery. Watson was disturbed. Holmes rarely missed the mark as royally as it seemed he had done. It must be Raffles who was pilfering the swag. Unless Raffles was deaf, which he wasn’t, he couldn’t have overlooked the noise that Watson carelessly made on his return home. There was no element of surprise in either direction. 

That was all right by Watson. This was the time for Watson, ex-soldier, to apprehend the crook and dazzle the audience. Unfortunately, the service pistol was in a drawer in the study, and it was hard to figure how to get at it from here.

Just as Watson was finalising his views over the wisdom of leaving to summon the armed forces of the law, the intruder saved him the annoyance of having to make a decision. This finely-trimmed fellow, wearing an inverness coat and a manly deerstalker over his black hair, was standing in the threshold of the study. The man was holding the gleaming revolver at the ready, but when he saw that it was only Watson who had come to rain on his parade, the revolver was calmly lowered. The doctor wasn’t a threat, the gesture said generously. 

“Ah!” Watson heaved the cathartic sigh. “Holmes, it is only you. Have you got Manders with you?”

The aloof visitor shook his head in the mournful negatory.

Watson stiffened. This was greatly troubling. After all, Watson had gone to great lengths to retrieve the article. “Why not?” he demanded brusquely. “You were going to watch over him! You let him go?”

The aloof visitor frowned profoundly, as if splintered in the easily harmed arch of the foot. Then he beat a hasty retreat into the study.

Watson had been afraid of this. His capricious friend of many years was prone to these nasty moods, though never before in the middle of a mystery. “Holmes, wait!” He marched after his visitor into the study.

The deerstalker was resting on top of a figure who was busying himself at Watson’s writing desk. Sheets of paper were cluttering the room available at his left elbow. The rejected service revolver monopolised the space on the right of the desk.

“What on earth are you doing?” Watson, not knowing any better, approached. He scanned the topmost sheet. The page’s effeminate scrawl had every suggestion of belonging to a female member of the tribe. Watson glanced in precipitous alarm to the moving hand, and instantly perceived that the style of the lettering of the completed documents matched the letters that were continuing to flow from the fountain pen. 

An exceedingly bizarre minute or two passed without incident. Watson did spot his own small change purse pushed off to the corner of the desk, but, in a way, it was an object which had the earmarks of being too remarkable a thing to be disturbed. Watson didn’t know what to say about it. It seemed plausible to him that developments might go over better if he didn’t say anything.

Shortly, the pencil ceased to write. The author shook the overworked hand in satisfaction, and spun to smirk at Watson. Some specimens of paper were removed from the crowd of stationary, and given to Watson for inspection.

Watson, despite good sense, investigated the papers as bidden. They resembled a diary in theme and structure. In the pages were a record by Raffles of some of his processes of thought, the modes of which were so obscure to his companions and acquaintances. Watson digested it.

Raffles hadn’t drummed up any definite plan regarding what to do with himself when he had fled Watson’s supervision. He’d simply gone for it. It was an instinctive reaction of his to flee from any situation akin to captivity, and Watson had made the job easy for him. It would have been criminal for him to turn down such a profitable berth all but begging to be seized. It’s not as if the prospect of meeting Holmes was an attractive one. The details of Holmes’s covert deal might reveal themselves later to be his lucky break, or they might end in a one-way trip to prison. Raffles penciled the heartfelt letter to Bunny, snagged the various valuables on Watson’s person, and dashed off. 

The blood was up. He was feeling the excitement of the fox who can’t be chased down. He might not think so tomorrow, but for the mo. it was an honest corker to have the peerless Sherlock Holmes on his tail. That isn’t to say he wasn’t keenly alive to the shakiness of his outlook; he was. Rather, the point of interest is that he was tickled pink to be up against a worthy foe. I wouldn’t have seconded this opinion. Risky undertakings are toxic to me. Yet they happen to be ambrosia and nectar to Raffles. That’s all right. It just goes to show you that it takes all sorts to make a world.

Trusting in his own spontaneity and rugged charm, Raffles convinced himself that he would find a way to extract both himself and Bunny from the soup later. To begin with, he couldn’t approach the enterprise without a few handfuls of the ready to hold him over. After his gentle morning constitutional through the English Channel, Raffles used some of his new capital to hire a couple of cabs to take him into London. He communicated strictly in the language of money and attacking the desired street on a map with his index finger. For the rest of it, he merely kept his head down, rested up as much as he could, and thankfully there wasn’t any issue. He very naturally had assumed that one of Dr Watson’s keys was for the abode the doctor famously split the rent on with the Baker Street detective. Since Holmes was going to meet the party of three at the dock, Holmes wasn’t going to meet Raffles at Baker Street.

Once deposited and paid-up to the driver, Raffles bounded inwards and upwards to get at the flat. He employed each of Watson’s keys until one cooperated. He slipped into the crammed, haphazard premises. At the end of it, he stopped and stood there for a bit, baffled. He had hoped that the best course of action would have been made clear to him by now. Intuitions were often like that. At least, for him they could regularly be counted upon to make an appearance at the critical moment. But now he was in the preeminent living quarters, and there was nothing. If anything, he was even less sure of what it was that he was doing. He certainly couldn’t make any use of the fine violin catching his eye. He hadn’t the know-how.

Raffles scratched his curly ginger hair, and considered. Legal tender was always in vogue, he supposed. No harm in giving the old college try to the tried and true method. He searched the furniture for the pounds and shillings. There was a billfold in plain sight, on a slightly prismatic table. He wasn’t going to argue about it. He stripped it.

The business didn’t feel right. Let me explain. There weren’t any ghosts of Christmas past shaking Raffles up. The voice in the back of the head wasn’t complaining. If anything, he fancied he was performing a public service. A private citizen arrogant enough to pull a wanted criminal out of redemptive wartime volunteering to bung the blighter into an entry level position in his detective business deserved to have a bail or two knocked off. Such good works on the part of Raffles never failed to buck him up spiritually. Well, maybe not never. Never is putting it too strongly. There was one time, he reflected philosophically, when relieving the white man of his burden gave him little to no satisfaction. The old excitement wasn’t there. A small tingle, at the best, he thought. It wasn’t a distant anomaly that happened in the carefree days of his childhood, either. It was five seconds ago.

Crime wasn’t what it used to be. In its Golden Age, thieves were artists. They wore the finest tailcoats and stovepipe toppers, and were all the rage at parties. Not the top ones, nor the ones in the rung beneath that, but maybe in the third tier down, if somebody there needed a halfway decent bowler to carry his club’s team of well-meaning gentlemen enthusiasts in decisive trials against wearers of differently striped ties. The fourth tier down, though, was a hot shoe-in. It ate him up, and he ate it up. He hunted the most dangerous game. Bluntly put, he robbed from the rich, and gave to a couple of the poor. 

You might infer from this that he didn’t have any sense, or was resistant to panic, but that’s not correct. His senses were in working order. Research doesn’t show that he experienced less panic than the average person. His portion of panic might even have been at the outlying end, as the recent university graduate might say with upturned nose. The thing is—and I agree that it is very peculiar—he seemed to like the panic. 

As an honourable mention, there were also some other appreciable benefits that come with being a national hero. There was the near-magical power it gave him to blind otherwise intelligent citizens and quiet young men with his celebrity, for instance. His reputation was top-notch. And he was the village favourite, if you catch my drift, which made him especially beloved by circles of enthusiasts. His well-up cricket-loving connections in the Albany hadn’t made a resounding bloomer in recommending him for the neighborhood. Newspapers held him in such esteem that they would feature him twice in the same issue, spotlighting with unreserved praise in two adjacent panels his uncanny ability to take wickets and things.

Regardless of these notable perks, the sport of pilfering was everything to Raffles, fame or no fame. And sadly, after certain events, burglary had gone the way of cricket: professional, boring, and hardly a sport at all. Absconding with billfolds left on tables was bland and uninspired. It was dull, and a disgrace to artists everywhere. Such tomfoolery only had the excuse of being necessary for liberty and sustenance. 

Although, if one was candid with oneself, he pondered unpleasantly, it might not be altogether necessary.

Raffles frowned. The more the head factory chugged, the harder it grew to deny the sober admission that running away from Holmes might have been a wee mistake.

Thankfully, there are many pleasant alternatives to admitting that one has badly blundered. Future market analysts might refer to the flight of Raffles as the crowning folly against which all future follies will be compared, but Raffles saw a way around the problem. He reframed it. He looked at his position from the business point of view. To give in to Holmes’s demands, he knew, would have shown weakness. Assuming that Holmes didn’t immediately ship him off to face the music anyway, Holmes would have forever after treated Raffles as his lackey and yes-person. That wasn’t what Raffles was about. 

No, if Holmes wanted anything out of Raffles, then Raffles would make the tyrant work for it first. A clash of iron wills was essential. Raffles wouldn’t listen to Holmes until Holmes had caught him. Either Raffles would swim to the shore of justice as a respected ally, or he would sink where he was. Excited by the idea, Raffles replaced the clip of Holmes’s bread and cheese on the table, and went to work in throwing together some suitable disguise with which he might freely run wild in the city.

The narrative ended there. 

Watson was bewildered. A solid chunk of exposition seemed to have been cut from the history. He double-checked the account, but it didn’t get any longer while he stared. There was no addendum to explain the muteness, or to recount how Raffles had landed in Watson’s house, or to explain what Raffles planned to do next. Watson sighed, and looked at an expectant Raffles with eyelids lowered in an expression of taxed forbearance. “You do realise that you are only running away because you are a thrill-chaser, don’t you?”

The accusation didn’t please Raffles very much. Authors are very sensitive about feedback, if they are of the artsy type.

“Watson, old chap!” a familiar voice suddenly exclaimed from outside. “Are you all right!”

Raffles, alarmed, shoved two more sheets of paper into Watson’s chest, and snatched the revolver and successfully made a hasty break for it out the open window. 

It didn’t even occur to Watson give chase. For a moment, he only thought about these new papers. He immediately skimmed over the first femininely-written lines of these twin papers, so gung ho was he to find out what was so important about each.

Well, while Raffles had been shamming sleep earlier, he had overheard Bunny, dear old Bunny, rave about Raffles’s many colourful idiosyncrasies. Every shortcoming and flaw thus highlighted by Bunny had not gone blissfully brushed off by Raffles. Additionally, Raffles had neglected to tune out the many candid remarks that Watson had made in honour of Holmes’s unique batch of quirks. Instead of allowing these charged comments to fade into kindly obscurity, Raffles had kept them in memory. He had even written them down.

The two samples of free-form poetry that Watson was holding were entitled “Sherlock Holmes—his limits in partnership” and “A. J. Raffles—his limits in partnership” respectively.

* * *

Watson was politely obliged to put a sock in it when Jeeves returned to the flat, bearing the latest news.

“Jeeves!” I cried. “What-ho. How is the traffic? Did you have a safe voyage? What’s the state of proceedings for the plucky set?”

“If I am correct in surmising that it is Mr Holmes and Mr Raffles who you are asking after, sir, I am gratified to relay that they are well. They desired me to tell Dr Watson and Mr Manders that their patience is acutely appreciated. I have delivered your communique to Mr Holmes.”

I almost asked what Holmes had to say about my message, but stopped myself in time. I recollected that I wasn’t counting on Jeeves to connect the dots between the memo I’d jotted and whatever advice Holmes had given him. Fortunately, there were other things I could ask about. I did so. “What about the riveting adventure of the wine bottle in the cellar? Does the game continue afoot? What’s the score at close of play?”

Watson and Bunny shared a small laugh at my words. That was nice, though not what I’d been working towards. Unintended humour is the best kind, I suppose.

“They are not yet finished, sir. They plan to remain intensely occupied for at least another hour and a quarter, if not more.”

I furrowed the brow in deep thought. “This hour and a quarter distance, despite being the minimum limit set, rather implies that the end is in sight, does it not, Jeeves? Or do I go too far in my presumption?”

“No, sir. The two gentlemen had every appearance of soon approaching a satisfactory conclusion to their activities.”

“Right-ho. Then that lays down upon us, another hour and a quarter, at least, to hear the rest of the fascinating account that Watson, stage right, and Bunny, stage left, have been dishing at breakneck speeds.”

“Yes, sir. Is there anything else?”

I was puzzled. I didn’t know what else there could be. “Eh?”

“Is there anything else you should wish, sir, or may I,” he paused, “retire from my duties?”

My jaw fell slack. This was a bomb. A harrowing setback. It was agony to think that Jeeves preferred departure to sticking around and finding out the ending to the mystery of the dog and the fox in the nighttime. “You don’t want to hear the rest of the story, Jeeves? You’ve already missed out on a good tenth of it.” Hoping he could be made to see reason, I implored with the perseverance of insurance salesmen. “Any more drama missed, and the leading chunks you heard earlier will go down in history as sadly wasted potential. Years will go by during which you will often look back on this special day and regret having missed the action of the climax by punching out and pushing off to bed too early.”

Jeeves paused. He seemed somehow grieved. The sides of his head bulged with intelligent contemplation. Some time later, he spoke again. “Please allow me to rephrase my solicitation,” he said. “May I request leave to consider myself no longer on duty?”

“Oh,” I said. This was a fairly well-thought-out request, now that it was rephrased. I liked it. It was a good sign for things to come. I don’t operate too well in schools of thought defining what it means to be on-duty or off-duty, but I guess Jeeves does. Perhaps this was Jeeves raising the flag signaling his proposition to relax the social conventions a bit, and waiting to hear back from the other ships to ascertain what they had to say about it. Semaphore, I think it’s called, or something like it. My hopes, hardened by past busts, were shyly raised. “Granted, Jeeves. I give you the all-clear.”

“Thank you, sir.” Jeeves filed in closer to the conglomerate. If sitting was his object, he had many fine selections to choose from. There was the piano bench, for example. A less finicky individual might even have settled for the sideboard. It was at my sofa, however, that this discriminating gaze lingered. The elegant lips twitched, and from this I gathered that Jeeves had another bit to say as well, but had backed out of it at the last minute.

The heart pounded. I cleared the clogged throat, and asked, “Do you want to sit here, Jeeves?”

He hesitated. “While it would hardly be my place, sir—”

I moved over. It was meant as a gesture of solidarity, a show of making space for him. It didn’t fundamentally change anything, of course. Jeeves’s place was a welcome title for either side of me. I presented that fact with a majestic wave. “You may sit, Jeeves,” I said.

He hesitated again. Then, he took a load off, as suggested. It was a magnificent moment in the life and times of Bertram. Outside, birds and automobiles tweeted cheerfully to mark the occasion. Jeeves and self were sitting together. It was all right with him, too. Smile or no smile, he had the aspect of a chum in whom criminally unambitious contentment prevails.

I noticed that his hands were still gloved white, and folded on his lap. They were kind of far from me. Jeeves’s fingers and thumbs appeared to be twice as big as mine. Yet the bigness doesn’t slow him down when he types things up for me. It’s interesting how that works. While I was on the subject, his palms were big, too. I thought about the matter in tremendous detail.

Various females of my experience, when confronted with an infant or a dog, will be instantly overtaken by the motherly instinct to fawn over the small and weak. None of my aunts have the instinct. In my experience, it’s strictly for girls only. More to the point, these girls beset their infants and dogs with the soppiest expression known to girls. The recipe for it might be two parts syrup and three parts honey. The expressions that Watson and Bunny were giving us were made the same way.

Eventually, Watson went on with the story. I was very grateful when he did.

Last we left off, Watson was reading an extract from the journals of Raffles, too distracted to lend a thought to the fledgling bed of springtime flowers that Raffles had ruthlessly trampled, as Holmes was busting in. Holmes, his own revolver in hand, skid to a graceful halt at the door of Watson’s study. “Watson!”

Watson raised his head. “Hullo, Holmes,” he said happily. He was glad to see his dearest friend again so soon. “I see you didn’t leave home without the Webley.”

“Raffles has been here! He has just fled through that window!”

“He left behind some very interesting lists,” Watson remarked. “I believe they are supposed to suggest some sort of competition between him and you. Would you care to look?”

“There’s no time for that, Watson! Did Raffles let slip any indication as to where he was headed?”

“No, I’m afraid he didn’t. Where is Manders, by the way?”

“On the steps,” Holmes said quickly, “bound to a handrail post by the American handcuffs.”

“Oh, in that case, he might not be there anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Raffles’s hair wasn’t trimmed in the back. He must have been wearing a hairpin underneath his hat.”

“Troublemaker!” Holmes exclaimed, and spun round.

The two of them darted outside. As Watson had foretold, Bunny was gone. The handcuffs, on the other hand, lingered. They sat abandoned alongside a tiny misshapen metal stick on the ground, at the bottom of the well-trodden stairs than ran up to Watson’s practice. The sturdy, dependable luggage hadn’t run away, either. As far as things that hadn’t run away could be counted, though, that was it. If there had been any overdone bout of Brotherly Love to mark the reunion of burglar with burglar, Holmes and Watson had missed it.

Holmes picked up the ruined hairpin. “You have made a magnificent prediction, Watson. While we were inside, I also made a prediction: Raffles must have tracked a pittance of soil at the minimum. There, you see the obvious traces. Undoubtedly, there are to be faint traces of coloured dirt as well, if one examines closely, but that particular is superfluous, and we are in a minor hurry. Come, he has taken off in this direction!” He started off at a brisk pace down the street.

Watson dutifully followed. “Surely he cannot go very fast,” he said, “if he has Manders in tow?”

“Another brilliant prediction! You are scintillating today. Be that as it may, this time you are mistaken.”

“But how can that be? Do you anticipate that they will hire a cab?”

“No,” Holmes said, and then Watson saw what Holmes had already caught sight of.

At the very end of the street, behind the throng of afternoon hansoms and pedestrians, Raffles and Bunny were seconds away from rolling off on a two-seated machine borrowed from a bicycle shop.

For a moment, the pits of the stomachs of Watson and Holmes flipped awfully. The situation was dreadfully dire. Bicycles, even these novel two-seaters, were unstoppable. The two fugitives might as well be making off in an aeroplane, from the perspective of their pursuers. In light of this obstacle, there was but a single solution open to the firm. Not five seconds after Raffles and Bunny triumphantly departed, Holmes led Watson into the cycle shop and sought out a sales representative.

There was a shop-minder on duty. The man was very troubled, and greatly perplexed. When Holmes entered, the shop-minder, glad to have somebody to turn to, said to Holmes, “Did you see that? Sherlock Holmes has stolen one of our bicycles!”

“Never mind him, my good man. He has his methods, you understand,” Holmes said. “We are four of us, desirous of renting two tandem bicycles.” 

“At this hour?”

“We shall return the machines by morning. Here is your payment, my good man. We will take this model here. Urgency is paramount, you understand.”

Watson raised a hand to delay his friend. “Wait, one moment, Holmes. Have you any pith helmets, sir?”

The shop-minder was doubly baffled. “What?” he managed to say. “This is bicycle shop, not a hat shop.”

“Then you are fortunate that we are in haste,” Watson declared passionately, the very soul of indignance.

They took the tandem bicycle, and turned down the road not taken in favour of the other option. The dangerous, low-speed chase through the city was on. 

Initially, Raffles and Bunny were out of sight, so Holmes and Watson asked the faceless masses they passed by for assistance. It was auspicious for the pair that everyone they interviewed was eager to help the friends of the chronically inconsiderate Sherlock Holmes, who had been so discourteous as to get so far ahead of two of his companions. While Watson politely thanked each person, Holmes was in no mood to express any gratitude.

Soon, they caught sight of the criminal pair. Watson silently noted in disapproval how Raffles’s head boasted only a deerstalker, and Bunny’s, nothing better than a flat cap. Also, Bunny wasn’t cycling.

Holmes called back, “Stop cycling, Watson!”

It wasn’t as if Watson was cycling much anyhow, due to the London traffic. Watson obeyed. “My leg is not bothering me, if that is your worry. The weather is clement!”

“I am already aware of the weather,” Holmes said, by which, Watson supposed, he had meant to say that he was already aware that Watson’s ancient injury was not currently making itself known. “My concern is for the spirit of fair play! Raffles may be an athlete, yet he cannot match the two of us. His long swim earlier has put him at a disadvantage, as well, though he may have forgotten it.”

“Why should you care about keeping fair play?”

“Because, that is the crux of this game! Raffles will not bow to my rules until I play by his!”

Watson laughed into the wind. “Yes, he told me the same! You are a wizard, Holmes! How did you know?”

“What other explanation is there for his rash rejection of our money, and this bicycling race, and his miming of the Sherlock Holmes invented by your illustrator?” Holmes laughed along. “Yes, when all else is eliminated, whatever remains must be the truth! It can only be that A. J. Raffles is having fun with us!”

This chase scene, by the way, dragged on for a goodish bit. In the interests of time, I’ll describe it in a nutshell. Raffles had gained his fame for being a slow, tricky bowler, and his bowling technique was tipped off by his cycling. Raffles preferred thin alleys over wide roads, and opted for crowded thoroughfares over open side streets. He did not shy from steeper hills, and he had no qualms about tracing mishmashed figure-eights through and around the city. Holmes, to his credit, was broad-minded and tolerant of this Rafflesian nonsense. Holmes was diligent, and professional, and he kept to the scent despite having better things to do with his evening. Or, he may have entertained an acceptance of the nonsense that went beyond mere tolerance. By the end of the mechanical pursuit, it was plain to Watson that Raffles wasn’t the only young-at-heart chap who was having fun.

At the eleventh hour, as the sun was presumably setting somewhere behind the English people’s ancestral clouds and what have you, Raffles slowed his forward march in the middle of a relatively empty street. He and Bunny abandoned their ride in front of a wine merchant’s shop, and ducked inside. Holmes and Watson followed their example, jumping off their tandem bicycle and rushing in with the same perfect synchronicity as those who came before. 

The shop was unattended. Inside, countless bottles of wine lined crisscrossing racks at every side. There was a door at the rear, but before Watson could check there, he found a deerstalker left behind, next to a trapdoor that was blown open, and from which some dim light shone. “Look, Holmes, the deerstalker is here!” Watson called. “They have fled into the cellar! There may be a secret passage below us!”

Holmes was not convinced. He wandered around, eyed every plank of wood with unforgiving suspicion, and paused at a fireplace in the corner. He rubbed a finger along the edge of the fireplace. “No, the hat is only a blind,” he declared in an enthusiastic fury. “This pattern of dust tells me everything. He cannot be in the cellar. He is on the roof!”


	6. The Honour Goes to Holmes

“Well that clears the confusion right up,” I said. “The question is answered. The puzzle has been finished, and all the pieces picked up off the floor and tacked into their proper places.”

Watson and Bunny didn’t seem to think so. I was alone in my enthusiasm. Jeeves’s position on the subject was obscure to me, but it didn’t matter, since he doesn’t go in for enthusiasm. “What do you mean?” Watson asked.

My arms were boldly akimbo. “Old bean, I hint at the case of the stolen wine bottle. It has been disclosed to self that Holmes and Raffles let slip that their adventure was to draw them along dual paths into the wine cellar of a beloved aficionado. The suspenseful thriller upon which we have been touching contains a ruse involving a wine shop’s cellar. According to reports relayed by word of mouth, the guilty burglar was fibbing about the cellar, and was really on the roof. That is where our two treasured imps have gone. They are presently on the roof, at a distance of several yards above our heads.”

Bunny spoke on behalf of himself and his befuddled compatriot. “That can’t be related.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“The story that we are telling happened many, many years ago. Why would they be thinking of it now?”

“Well, we are thinking about it,” I suggested. That’s as far as I got in that line.

“Jeeves,” Watson said. “You went to see Holmes and Raffles. They aren’t on the roof, are they?”

“Yes, sir.”

Watson crinkled the brow. “Do you mean yes, as in, they are on the roof?”

“Yes, that is the significance I intended to convey, sir,” Jeeves said. “While I did not feel that it was seemly for me to betray their whereabouts while those whereabouts were kept private, since their location has been independently surmised, I no longer regard the situation as obligating professional silence.”

Watson was stunned.

Bunny fell back in his seat and cursed something. I won’t repeat it.

“And you figured this out,” Watson staggered on, “before you ever learnt of the climax of this story?”

“In a manner of speaking, sir. The clue provided by the message of the wine cellar had little relevance to me. However, earlier today I happened to remark upon two cigarette butts as they were thrown to the street by a storey above ours. The angle and velocity of these two stubs was such that I was given to understand that two individuals had, moments ago, been smoking on the roof.”

I stood up. “Jeeves.”

His eyes sparkled with eager intelligence. “Yes, sir?”

“Conditions cannot be allowed to prevail as they are.”

“Sir?”

“This foolishness has tried the patience of each of us, but no more. Holmes and Raffles will be apprehended and rounded up. Their presences in my flat have long been much desired. We shall drag them home by the ears, if the need arises. Our curiosity will be allayed. It will at last be made well-known which of our adored weasels was successful in pulling a fast one on the other.” I wouldn’t have bothered to give a reason for my decision, except that I didn’t want Jeeves to suspect that I was yearning for the company of Holmes and Raffles so that my valet-turned-friend would be more comfortable. I don’t know how they do it. My first guess is animal magnetism, but that can’t be right. Jeeves has as much as than they do, if not more.

“Indeed, sir.” Jeeves, perhaps being moved by my speech, unfolded his nice-looking hands and rose to his feet. After a second or two of mulling it over, I reasoned that he was judging my meaning to be a kind of instruction to be carried out. I quickly clarified.

“I shall take them into custody myself, Jeeves,” I said. “You may hold the fort with Watson and Bunny until I return, if that suits you.”

“If it is acceptable to you, sir, I should prefer to accompany you,” Jeeves replied instantly.

“Oh.” It beat me whether that was in my favour or not. “Right-ho. Have it your way.”

That made Jeeves happy. So, I was happy. Our two visitors, who were happy to be sitting down cosily with bracing drinks in their hands, stayed where they were and kindly bid us a pleasant trip.

I led the way out the flat, and consequently Jeeves and I ended up in one of the hallways of the haunted complex where I live. Sometimes, there are anonymous ghosts roaming about, whose names and circumstances I’ve never learnt, but we were alone. The occupants of other flats weren’t coming out to meet us, which left the hallways clear.

Yet after this first thrust, I was stumped. The location of the building’s fire escape was unknown to me. The inside stairs I have a fair grasp on, but those don’t go to the roof. The incomparable Jeeves, on the other hand, knew the procedure for getting to the roof intimately. I followed him through a door, to the refreshing outdoors. We ascended some stairs. Jeeves is a perfect vertical line when he goes up stairs, by the way. Dashed useful, if one ever loses one’s own sense of verticality.

He, and then I, ascended the ladder at the top to climb onto the roof.

As expected, two other chaps had beaten us to it. The main activity for them was to sit around like grape-fed emperors on divans of roof tile and not contribute to society. One of the two men had the trappings of a fellow who just barely scrapes up enough funds to keep his residence in Chelsea. A painter, that is to say. The other bird was Sherlock Holmes.

“Ah!” Holmes smiled warmly upon our entrance. “Good day to you, Wooster! Welcome back, Jeeves.”

“Aged hero of my childhood,” I responded heartily, “what delays the reinforcements? Why are you and Raffles not breathing new life into festivities below?” I bravely assumed the painter was Raffles. To do so was to court the possibility of acute embarrassment, should I be in error, but it worked out. He looked delighted. I greeted him, “What-ho, rascal of my youth?”

Raffles said something. The lips moved. No noise reached the ears. This made me nervous. I wasn’t confident on protocol.

“A. J. says hello,” Holmes said, “and asked if you are fond of Sullivans.”

“Cigarettes?” I said. “Sure, anything’s fine.”

Raffles said something else, probably sarcastically, and that was all the warning I got. Without further ado, the brute hurled a pack of cigarettes at me. It nailed me in the ribs, and I happened to catch it. It wasn’t as disturbing and upsetting an occurrence as it would have been to a man of less experience in coordinating the eyes and hands. I was a varsity man in rackets at university, you know. I skimmed through the pack and concluded that it was mostly full.

Holmes explained the bottom line of the preceding for my benefit. “A. J. was kind enough to give me one earlier. As for the remainder, he wants you to have them. Neither one of us is encouraged to smoke at home.”

That was fine. “Thanks awfully,” I said to Raffles. He approved. “These details fall short of justifying your prolonged jaunt in the crow’s nest, however. Does this lounging around on rooftops constitute some kind of intellectual or physical contest?”

“No. That phase of our little get-together ended hours ago. I chased down Raffles. Raffles reported his news to me. I reported my news to Raffles. Now we are discussing a very real and very obscure predicament which we share in common. It is a delicate problem that endures in connection with Watson and Bunny. You see, I am convinced that Watson has been concealing some trouble from me ever since we met you and Jeeves in America. It cannot be a great trouble, yet it is indisputably there. A. J. tells me that a similar malady has befallen Bunny, under nearly identical circumstances. Bunny, like Watson, is mysteriously distressed, and has been so since encountering you. It cannot be the fault of a gentleman as courteous as you, of course. The complications must lie elsewhere, in our own conducts, no doubt. We are, well,” Holmes tapped his chin. “How shall I describe it?”

Raffles, smirking, offered a description.

Holmes grinned brightly. “Yes, that’s right. Working on our relationships.”

I’m glad this relationship talk was so absorbing to them, because it was not to me. It rather resembled rot that I sometimes heard spill forth from the anxious newly-weds at the Drones. “Whatever it is,” I said, “if you have been turning it over for hours to no effect, then your justification has its flaws. I am of the attitude that additional hours, if thrown at so tangled a problem, will be thrown in vain. Meanwhile, your sociable counterparts await you downstairs. They are on the verge of finishing the story of when one of you chased the other, and we shall all have to go without the ending if we continue to dawdle.”

Holmes and Raffles were intrigued. There was no struggle for counterargument. Instead, they bowed to reason, and got up.

As one, we swarmed down the fire escape.

Before I say what happened when we made it back to the flat, let me just say this. Raffles might have been the former burglar trussed up as a starving artist, and they were both incurable bookworms, but it was Holmes who was the Bohemian fruit in the basket. Whereas Raffles possessed the sort of refined taste and gourmet sensibilities that no law-abiding gentleman lacking a title could reasonably be expected to finance, Holmes relished an unconventional mode of living for which the ideal approaches living in a hut. In the year when Raffles was winning awards for blowing the most genteel of smoke rings that England had ever seen, Holmes was strumming discordant notes of his fiddle in the Diogenes Club, scientifically counting the number of strums before somebody amended the rules and kicked him out.

The above will help you to understand why, when the four of us arrived at the flat, Holmes preempted all other conferences within the gathering when he leapt onto the arm of Watson’s chosen seat, smoothly collapsed onto crossed legs like a folding chair, leaned an elbow on Watson’s head, and had the honour of finishing the story himself.

* * *

The sun was getting ready to call it a night. Having dipped below the horizon, this stately ball of fire was spitting out its last rays of light before it edged out of things completely. It was a windfall for the lighting. The subtle orange-to-indigo contrast from one side of the sky to the other was of interest. The gentle day, before the wheels of Phoebus, round about dapples the drowsy east with spots of grey, as Jeeves once described the phenomenon to me. There was a cool spring breeze, too, I think. There probably was a breeze, anyway.

At the crest of the wine merchant shop, at the smokestack where sky would have expected smoke to flow out, a detective in a top hat popped out instead. At the other side of the roof, one fugitive with black, free-flowing, nape-length hair was helping his counterpart climb down the fire escape with one hand, while the other one inattentively gripped Watson’s pinched revolver. The detective’s arm swung forward, and in this manner his own pistol was held parallel to the roof. 

“Bang!” Holmes vociferated like a fellow meaning to hail a cab. His wrist mimed a make-believe recoil from his gun.

While the hands continued to provide Bunny with the supportive grip, Raffles’s head owled backwards.

Holmes lowered the weapon, and climbed out of the chimney. “A solid quartering shot, I should say,” he said, once his feet were stable on the leads. “Not the form of shot one aims for, but you were turned away slightly.”

Watson, who shortly heaved himself up the chimney afterwards, hadn’t seen the shot himself, but he got the idea. 

Raffles cast a mischievous grin backwards. He calmly pulled Bunny up to the roof again, and didn’t make any sudden moves.

Though he went along with it, Bunny didn’t seem to consider it a wise move. “A. J.,” he murmured, “what are you doing? Are we giving up?”

“That remains to be seen, Mr Manders,” Holmes answered. “We shall fInd out soon enough. Well, Mr Raffles, you have compelled me to follow you in a race around the city. With a change of costume, I take it you meant to hide by impersonating me; it was very bold of you to test the strength of your disguise on Mrs Hudson. You missed her very excited reaction when I appeared at her door, after she had sent me away to see Watson. Remind me, Mr Manders, what did she have to say when we consulted with her?”

Bunny bowed to his amused friend. “She said that she was concerned to see that Holmes had taken ill,” he muttered, “but that she was glad that it seemed he had also lost his voice because of it, since he was not able to argue with her when she stuffed him full of biscuits and personally sent him away in a hansom to Dr Watson’s practice.”

Raffles didn’t deny it, or take umbrage. Quite the reverse, he was easy-going about it. He made a sort of gesture to Bunny, pointing a friendly finger at him.

The stiff pressure to correctly infer his partner’s meaning was on. Bunny began tentatively. “I’m sorry?”

His demeanor expressing harmless curiosity, Raffles double-tapped on Bunny’s stomach.

“Oh, yes!” Bunny smiled an embarrassed fraction, though mostly he was relieved to have understood. “She plied me with biscuits, too. I didn’t turn her down.” He noticed Raffles smile also, and agreed, “Yes, they were good. She was very kind about it, too. She insisted that I was wearing thin.”

“I did not partake,” Holmes said levelly. “I cannot spare energy for digestion, when I am on a case.”

Bunny, finding an earlier pool of irritation in him refreshed, frowned fiercely at Holmes. “That is the most patently absurd—!”

“He knows,” Watson said, with low tones. He spoke with an inflection of worldly sadness. He wouldn’t have turned away any biscuits from Mrs Hudson.

Holmes let Watson’s remark slide with naught but the raised eyebrow, and went on. “As I was saying, you have demonstrated some aspects of your resourcefulness. With a simple bicycle ride, you contested my endurance, my acumen, and my encyclopedic knowledge of the London grid with your own. You tried to lose me in this wine shop—secretly a meeting place for criminals and their fences, I presume, or else the chimney, despite being useless for goods that must be kept chilled, would never have been converted into an escape. You even replaced the removable smoke shelf so that your vanishing act would be complete. Did the shopkeeper flee into the cellar, at your appearance, and the hat was merely thrown from your head in your rush to the topside? Never mind, it is not of consequence. I kept on your tail, and here we are, face to face. Are you ready to listen to my offer?”

Raffles stood back, crossed his arms, and considered. 

“I will admit that I do not know why you are not speaking,” Holmes said. “It can only be on account of an injury. Possibly your voice is entirely ruined, or very possibly it remains usable, but altered. It is impossible to say for certain.” His chin bowed down, and it set itself in a pensive pose. “I fancy I do not reach too far,” he added slowly, “in my speculation that you will not enlighten me on the topic in any case, because you are too proud a man to do anything but divert attention from your new disability.”

Raffles’s eyes narrowed a smidge. He stiffened.

Holmes, betraying a sense of victoriousness, glanced from one burglar to the other. “Even with respect to your friend.”

Raffles was jolted. Instinctively, his rummy-feeling head swivelled away from Bunny. 

Astounded and aghast, Bunny stared at Raffles. 

“I see that I was not overreaching after all.” Holmes wore a grim, unhappy kind of smile. It never bucks one up to see a kind of tiff between chums, even if that was one’s goal from the get-go, so Holmes wasn’t happy despite his getting it right. “Your pride is what keeps you from making efforts to communicate with him, in spite of your own willingness to accommodate his own injury. Isn’t that right? You neglected even to take so natural a precaution as bringing with you Watson’s pencil and paper. I was a fool not to appreciate this fact sooner, or I would have asked Watson to bring his notebook. Your speedy departure was an unfortunate distraction for us.”

Raffles, angry and miserable and generally lacking in the welcome sense of being on the up-and-up, glared at Holmes.

Holmes accepted that. Frankly, he deserved a bit of rude treatment from Raffles. He hadn’t been very nice to the chap, if the weary glance he was getting from Watson was in any way reflective of his own character. But somebody had to keep the ball rolling, and no one else was going to do it, if he wasn’t. “As it stands, a shake of your head, yes or no, will have to suffice for our purposes. Will you listen to my terms?”

Raffles huffed. The butt of Raffles’s purloined revolver rubbed against the bottom of his arm, as he carefully weighed his choices. Before this, he had been kidding around to his rapscallion heart’s content; now, there was every indication that the kidding-around act was flushed down the proverbial drain. His features were moody and sombre. He nodded. 

“It is not a matter that I have considered lightly. Long before you were ever involved, I probed the possibility of taking you on as a successor from every angle. Every contingency was investigated. I discussed the concept in all of its fine points with Dr Watson, as well, when I took him into my confidence. You should know that he was very startled, when I presented the idea to him, and very against it. He asked me, were I not taking too ponderous a risk in proposing to trust you? I will tell you what I told him: that your singular combination of ability and nerve warrants the risk.”

Watson said, “I also asked if justice were to be served.” As we’ve seen before, Watson had a fear of saying exactly what he thought. He minced words, and didn’t get at the root. He didn’t submit, for example, that from the outset of the adventure, he hadn’t thought Holmes was firing on all cylinders.

“Yes, and that is the far trickier question to answer. You have committed crimes that you have not paid for, Mr Raffles. The law would have you rot in prison for them, either in the name of reform or in the name of punishment, depending on whichever is more fashionable. Such a fate would be the necessary consequence for the wrongs you have wrought. However,” Holmes inhaled deeply, and raised his voice. “However! I could not give you up in good conscience, when I contemplate the great loss to the empire it would entail. Your service to the crown has shown me that you are capable of doing great good, after you have grown tired of doing every other thing first.”

“You won’t send Raffles to prison?” Bunny asked. Apparently, this issue dogged him more than it did Raffles. On this subject, Bunny was a bundle of nerves and impatience.

“That depends on what he chooses,” Holmes said. “I will not send Raffles to prison, nor will I expose him to the public, on the condition that he becomes my operative, does exactly as I bid him, and reports constantly to me, either by the post or by the agony column. I am not particular.”

“No, Raffles won’t agree to that!”

This tidbit from Bunny struck Holmes as fascinating, though largely irrelevant.

Raffles, though, and to some lesser extent also Watson, were surprised. 

“Raffles is no one’s underling.” Bunny said. “If he’s to work for you, then it’s not merely as your servant. It’s as a—as a—”

“As a consultant?” Watson offered, trying to be helpful. 

Bunny corrected passionately, “As an equal!”

“All right,” a very cheerful Holmes said at once.

This came in the manner of a whacking blow to Bunny. He sagged. “All right?” he repeated, almost fearfully. 

“Yes,” Holmes said. “I am not so novice a negotiator as to overlook your friend’s first and foremost requirement. He will not tolerate to have anyone above him in the hierarchy. It is the one truly problematic weakness in his curriculum vitae. While the catalogue of his past crimes did present some difficulties, his lively history troubles me less than does than his resistance to taking orders. Yet in light of his other meritorious qualities, I must respect the single demerit that is his specialist’s vanity.”

Despite expectations, that last turn of phrase amused Raffles, more than anything. Not sure why. Maybe it tickled him that it was Holmes who was throwing the phrase around.

“We shall be equals, then, in a race to do the most good. The only difference between us is that he must start with a significant handicap. It is a handicap of your own making, Mr Raffles, so it is fair. You must report to me, while you are so far behind on the track; that is a hard rule of the competition. If you catch up to me, or surpass me, then I consent, my good man, that I must also report to you. You see? It is not subordination. It is the game that we must play.”

Raffles seemed to like the system. The part about Holmes having to report to him was the chiefly juicy morsel, but the notion of a vigorous game between the masters was agreeable, too.

“Splendid.” Holmes took the placid silence as the only green light forthcoming. and kept up the push. “The context of a competition will also have its other uses. If memory serves, I believe you have already taken steps to initiate what is sure to be a lifelong rivalry with me. Watson, you mentioned that he composed some lists, which constituted a competition between us?”

“Yes. Here, I’ve got them.” Watson produced the accused papers from his pocket and smoothed them out.

“Quite so. These are evidence of his hunger for to improve himself, so that he may eclipse me. They are assuredly a list of our skills, comparing his many talents to my own.”

“Actually, they aren’t.”

Holmes’s insufferably pleased-looking expression had a small hiccup. “Ah.” He managed to recover, and was smug again. “Then they are tallies of our victories.”

Watson, kind-hearted chap that he is, made the formidable effort not to laugh. A secret thief den’s roof wasn’t the place for carefree giggles. Seriousness was called for. “No, that’s not what they are.”

“Ah.” Holmes paused. His smugness dripped down onto the leads and along the tiny ramps to the rain gutters. “My dear Watson,” Holmes said in politeness to his companion, “may I see them?”

“Sure, but it’s too dark to read easily.”

An irritated groan ensued from Holmes. Spots of grey, though cinematic and increasingly popular with dramatic coves, may have been the wrong choice for the landscape. Twilight, fetching as it was, wasn’t a one-size-fits-all for intervention scenes with fugitives. It had its costs. Holmes reluctantly addressed the gathering. “Has anyone got a lantern?”

“I have a torch,” Bunny replied, uncertainly. He hadn’t want to say it, but it was true that he’d taken the electric model that some other passing criminal had left in the fake chimney, so he had said it. Luckily, it was unlikely he’d be picked. He couldn’t possibly be at the top of the detective’s queue for torch-bearers. It just wasn’t the done thing.

But the unarmed-hand that Holmes waved to Bunny betrayed the reality that Holmes wasn’t choosy. “Come over here and shine a light.”

“Are you sure about that?” This breaking of boundary lines wasn’t in Bunny’s comfort zone. This encounter was supposed to be a climatic clash. It wasn’t shaping up to be one. “I can throw the torch, if you like.” 

“Don’t be silly. It’s dark, and you might break it. Come over here.”

It was a lot to ask, I know, but there was nothing doing. In a final desperate escape attempt, Bunny checked with Raffles, who mistook the action and nodded encouragingly. Bunny, sighing, toed the long line to Holmes and Watson, and engaged the torch. 

Watson held the papers up for their collective inspection. He took turns shaking each sheet for emphasis. “This one is a history of his,” the delicate paraphrasing was applied, “mishandling of Manders. This one is a history of your mishandling of me. Both lists are admirably comprehensive.”

This made for an excellent example of one of Bunny’s many morose moments in life. “Oh,” he mumbled to himself, feeling himself a wretch all over again, “from our talk on the ship.” Unlike Watson, to whom the lists were shining badges of a sort of gentlemanly honour, Bunny was not at all pleased with himself.

Holmes tilted his head. “These were dictated to some woman, I gather. Which list is longer?” It was a scholarly wringer. 

“They are the same length,” Watson answered in like spirit, “and they were written by Raffles. That is his handwriting.”

Indeed, each was a bulleted check-off of the abuses on the patience of Watson, or of Bunny. Holmes grimaced. He couldn’t understand it. Normally, competitions concerning male vanity involve certain elements. Physical contests are common. Unending histories of professional or romantic successes were often involved. One’s shortcomings in one’s treatment of one’s partner, however, didn’t generally feature. It was an honest head-scratcher. Holmes was already keenly aware that he had taken for Watson for granted. It wasn’t clear to him how that was any of Raffles’s business.

A foreign hand plucked the Holmesian list. Holmes, Watson, and Bunny pivoted to see that Raffles was behind them. Raffles passed off the useless revolver to Watson, held Bunny in place, borrowed the torch, softly smacked the paper onto Bunny’s back, and scribbled an addendum to the bottom of it with a pencil removed from a trouser pocket. When he was finished—and he was very considerately spared any disruptions in his endeavour—Raffles released his mixed-feeling-filled partner and gave the finished work to Holmes.

Once again, nobody cared whose eyes the message was meant for. All three of them read it, rubbing shoulders for an agreeable view of the scratch. Bunny pointed the light straight at it.

It said, in prettily formed letters, “To help work on relationships.”

A tranquil stillness set over the land. The crisp breeze, if there was one, ceased to flit about the ankles. Even Watson and Bunny were completely subdued in speech and movement.

“These are not for a competition,” Holmes deadpanned.

Raffles nodded gravely. Holmes had to spin backwards so that the signal wasn’t lost on him. 

The deadpan style intensified. “These are to-do lists. Inventories. Items wanting improvement.”

The second nod Raffles awarded was half-sympathetic, half-apologetic. 

Holmes was speechless. Not too long ago, he had claimed to have investigated every contingency. The claim was distributed in error. He’d missed one.

Compassionate chap though he was, Raffles could give Holmes only one spiritual consolation. He held an open hand out to Holmes. He had considered the terms of the contract, it seemed, and was ready to sign on the dotted line.

It was either the cue of Holmes’s victory, or of his defeat. No one knows which. At any rate, the hunt was at its end. The more astute gods of Mount Olympus were gleefully raking in the winnings, to the jealousy of their unhappier peers. After hundreds of thousands of years, the paradox of the interminable chase was solved. The two hounds of Baker Street had caught the wily fox, and the rabbit as a free bonus. Holmes stowed his pistol, and shook the hand of Raffles. 

It was a momentous moment in the history of civilisation. Bunny was amazed. Watson was concerned, and a little amazed. Raffles was all right. Holmes was fit, too, or at least he would be, as soon as he’d pulled himself together.

The deal was settled. Holmes took his hand back, and cleared his throat. “Well, then,” he said, “it has been a long day. Shall we find ourselves some dinner? I will foot the bill. It is a special occasion. I hope you will forgive my vegetarianism. It is a small habit that I learnt in Tibet. Watson tolerates it admirably.”

“Holmes,” Watson cut in, “please don’t forget about the trunks that we deserted in front of my house. Someone might steal them.”

“No, we wouldn’t want that,” Holmes said. “First, the luggage. Then, dinner.”


	7. I Recollect the Sermon on Brotherly Love

“But where are my manners?” Spritely as an imp, Holmes pushed off the arm of the armchair and extended a welcome to Bunny. “How are you, Bunny? You are looking fine.”

Bunny jumped up, in time for Holmes to bestow a friendly pat on his arm. Bunny, being shorter, mirrored the civil acknowledgement with a pat to Holmes’s side someplace. “That is a lie,” he said, and he made it sound kind and lenient. “I look like an old man, and so do you.”

“Is that so? Now that you mention it, I suppose we are getting up in years.”

Bunny smiled softly. “It’s nice to see you, Holmes.”

“I have been informed that you recently took an interest in publishing old war accounts. Have you met with success?”

“Oh, a little. The subject is comparatively popular at the moment. My publisher took a volume.”

“That is excellent.” Then Holmes gestured to Raffles, who hadn’t sat down and was hanging around where Jeeves and I were standing. “And Watson,” Holmes said to his long-standing partner, “aren’t you pleased to see Raffles?”

“Yes, of course I am pleased.” Watson got up, jolly as Christmas, and met Raffles halfway. The two clapped each other on the shoulder. “Hello, A. J. It’s been too long.”

Raffles gave a zestful nod, then scribbled some gibberish in a notebook of his, and let Watson see it.

“Oh, America was lovely. The dancing craze has taken over there, too. Their young ladies and gentlemen are behaving as freely as ours do these days. The journey was nostalgic for Holmes, too, though I know that he only agreed to the trip for my sake.”

“Watson!” Holmes protested. The unsettled outburst was not faked. He blinked as one who has had a light turned on closely in front of him.

“He still holds that the country is full of secret societies and criminal syndicates,” Watson continued, to the gratifying result of an adolescent snicker from Raffles. “I used to disagree with Holmes, although lately there is ample evidence that the temperance movement has put him in the right at the end.”

Even poor Holmes couldn’t say definitely if this was a compliment. He’d been thrown off his game. “Thank you,” he volunteered, though it was a shaky, murmured proposition.

This talk of syndicates was no casual affair for Raffles. He scowled suspiciously, for some reason, and wrote another question for Watson.

Whatever it was, it was an offensive blow. Watson wasn’t amused. He did the whole pillar-of-society, crossed-arms routine. “Raffles, that is unworthy of you!”

“What did he say?” Bunny asked.

Watson huffed. “He wished to know if the crime syndicates were Italian! Absolute balderdash.”

A slight groan was sounded from some place. Bunny rubbed his temple to relieve a sudden headache. 

“Well,” Holmes ventured to say, despite having his good health recently overturned, “he is not wrong.”

A tempering hand came up, and Watson sighed. “Holmes, please, don’t encourage it.”

“Never mind them,” Bunny said to Watson. “It can’t be helped. Raffles is just paranoid.”

Raffles, who was not charmed by Holmes’s input, immediately began writing his furiously enthusiastic rebuttal.

Bunny already knew what it was without having to read it. His hands went to his indignant hips. “It has not been valid for thirty years!” he sassed to Raffles. 

I wasn’t paying too much attention to any of this dribble. I might have zoned out. There was probably a bit more of this aimless back-and-forth that didn’t stick. On the other hand, it was a rare gift to have such giants of literature in my living room, so the mind went blank and I stared at them for a while. I ought to take back what I said; they weren’t giants compared to Jeeves. Jeeves towers over them by inches. Holmes and Raffles stretched above the standard height, however. They were about the same length, when measured from heel to crown. My fingers formed a structure that took inspiration from the square lens of a camera, as I tried to discern who was the taller. It was no use. I gave up on that, and tried another method.

“Jeeves,” I said. “If it’s not asking too much, I have a favour to ask fo you. I’m in a bind without your collaboration. It’s like this. Can you push Holmes and Raffles together?”

There were at least two people who had been speaking right before, and normally my come-at-able voice cannot fight against so fearsome a tide, but for once everyone fell silent and processed instead of ignoring me.

“Yes, sir,” Jeeves said with that reserved fervor of his. He was glad and eager, as always, to be given a chance to lend support to something.

Have you ever seen a porky-faced child sneak quietly up to a cat or two, and then launch at the felines with a grab for the hind-quarters? The intended victims, being fast enough to evade capture in most cases, cry out the alarm and leap about twenty feet in the air, during which feat a startled shudder ripples through their fur coats. Each individual hair juts out in pantomime of the quills of a notably fretful porpentine. This is how Holmes and Raffles reacted to Jeeves. 

Their eyes flashed in alarm, and their arms twitched unconsciously, as if instinct told them that it was about to become important to assume a defensive position. Holmes’s reaction, at least, had a touch of liberal whoopee to it, while being mostly guarded. Raffles was strictly unsettled. Watson and Bunny chuckled after the fashion of cliques of school-age girls whose favourite pastime is to giggle at nervous lads and see who can make the chap guest blush first.

Jeeves instantly applied the soothing ointment. “I believe the innocent object Mr Wooster has in mind is to compare your heights,” he said.

“The heights are identical,” Holmes asserted. Quick, terse, and to the point.

Bunny couldn’t hold down the cracked smile. “Heights can change, Holmes. There’s no harm in checking again.”

“I agree. We ought to let Wooster decide who’s taller for himself,” Watson suggested.

“That’s a great idea,” Bunny seconded. “Do it for Wooster.”

Holmes and Raffles traded conflicted looks and, reluctantly, gave in, on the unspoken terms that they would at least suffer together, and for good cause. Jeeves stepped forward to guide them into the correct position, back to back. Then, Jeeves set to work on balancing a nearby hardcover on their heads, and when that was done, he balanced a shot taken from the sideboard on top of the book. The discomfited twin columns trapped beneath the long book could cross their arms as disapprovingly as they liked, but it wasn’t going to change anything. Watson and Bunny, having giggled at the same winning moment, drew a tie in their schoolgirl’s challenge. 

The pond in the balanced shot glass was majestically level. I happened to notice that height wasn’t nature’s only equaliser between them, either. The two men under observation were light and thin in lips, head-shape, and in all other features if one sets aside the hair, which was thick and heavy all around. Both noses were hawk-like, and both sets of eyes were grey and uncomfortably penetrating. The one salient difference in mugshots was the unruly tussle of Raffles’s hair, in contrast to the orderly, straight lines on the head of Holmes. They’d come in with an artsy beret and prim top hat, but those had been abstracted along with their coats by Jeeves, when no one was looking.

Jeeves compassionately removed the book and the glass. Holmes and Raffles hastily separated.

“Which of you wins in an arm-wrestling contest?” In hindsight, I acknowledge that critics may consider interviewing one’s exceptional guests out of the blue to amount to a social faux pas. Anything goes with the regular trespassers, but these venerable tourists were not be treated so carelessly. Alas, it’s a moot issue. Hindsight wasn’t with me at the time. I was curious.

Holmes answered, “An attack of rheumatism.”

Raffles pffted over his shoulder, disagreeably. It was a soulful comeback.

“Holmes wins the arm-wrestling, boxing, and singlestick,” Watson said, sweetly. Not sweetly in the sense that he admired his friend’s abilities, but sweet in the sense that he made allowances for them. “Raffles wins the running, swimming, and darts. It’s a toss-up for billiards.”

Great data, I supposed, but a lot to take in at once. It was difficult to believe that the necessary adventures had happened between then and now that could have required pitting the leading figures against each other in so many fields. There can’t be that many mysteries that involve opening a secret passageway with a darts tournament. “That is a staggering number of contests. Did they really do the best two-out-of-three for each, or do you make educated guesses, derived from the analysis of serendipitously comparable past events?”

“No, there were competitions, all right.” Bunny’s reply was equally chiding and affectionate. “Raffles was adamant that they test everything.”

“The arm-wrestling match was the very first one.” Watson said to Bunny, “Do you remember the day when Raffles burst into the flat with two cudgels taken from a university club, and demanded that Holmes fight him with one? Holmes was working with his chemicals at his bench at the time, and wouldn’t pay any attention to him. Holmes even went to the sofa to lie down instead. And then, ha!” Watson’s strength failed him, and he laughed from the gut. “And then Raffles grew so heated that he knocked a flask over! Goodness, but that restored Holmes to life! He was absolutely livid!”

The ailment was contagious. “Oh, yes, I’d forgotten!” Bunny joined in on the happy chuckling. His sides split themselves joyfully, more or less. “Don’t forget that Raffles was quite angry, too! He was proud of the mess he made, and furious that Holmes wouldn’t fight him! Holmes the scientist; that’s what Raffles accused him of!”

“Oh, yes! And Raffles the sportsman; that was Holmes’s retort!”

“As if those were supposed to be insults?”

In the midst of this charming back-and-forth, merry assistant and assistant were being silently watched by the red-faced detective and burglar. Even though these two good sunny-side-up eggs didn’t understand the rules of the baffling sport they were spectating, they were getting a charge out of the casual audience’s watching experience. If Holmes and Raffles were grumpy cats shaking off the last drops of an assault from a full bucket, then Watson and Bunny were playful kittens. They were beaming, adorable, and begging to be scratched feverishly behind the ears. These were kittens entirely free of any concealed distresses.

The startled pumas on the other side were incorrect on that point, then, I observed. I turned to Holmes, wishing to elucidate and spread the good news. “You and Raffles were talking genuine rot, previously,” I said. “These are not the words of unhappiness that we are being treated to earfuls of. Remark upon the gleeful hoopla. Take notice of the joie de vivre. There isn’t the feeblest of nervous afflictions afflicting either Watson or Bunny.”

The speeding trains of lighthearted nostalgia from Watson and Bunny came to a stop. The chaps righted themselves from their hunched-over aspects, and looked at me, gazing as would two conductors wondering at the oddly-minded fellow who had gone wandering onto the tracks in front of them.

Holmes and Raffles, concurrently, did not waste their emotional capital on so flimsy an investment as wonder. Whereas the drivers in the more pacifist trains were content to ogle and take photographs of the straggler on the tracks, these two sharp-eyed conductors seemed to me to be considering picking up speed and barrelling right through.

Jeeves sidled smoothly into the space between me and them, so after that my sight of their expressions exactly was slightly impaired.

“Holmes, do you think that I am upset about something?” It was Watson gently broke the silence.

“Raffles,” Bunny said, less confidently, by comparison. “What is Bertie talking about?”

There was a little time-out between the lions while they used glances and frowns as wordless signals to each other. An illegal strategy in bridge, Jeeves has told me, and not the done thing, but I admit that we were not playing bridge. Holmes and Raffles shot glares at me. Then Holmes remembered his vegetarianism, took the mic., and softly gave comment. “Wooster exaggerates,” he said. I got the impression that he was carefully tiptoeing around every thorny syllable. “However, he is not mistaken.”

Watson made a sombre ah-ha. “So you do believe that I am upset.”

“It is not belief.” Even in the most trying of situations, keeping facts on the button was compulsory for Holmes. “You are upset.”

“But I assure you, I am not upset.”

Holmes didn’t say anything. He was grim.

“Raffles,” Bunny started, and then he, too, couldn’t grasp at any solid thing to say. Notably, he had yet to deny any charges laid by the constabulary.

With all the bitter enthusiasm of a man pushed into action, Raffles wrote in his journal, and crossed the short distance over to the kittens’ habitat in order to present his message to one of its benign occupants.

“No, Bertie doesn’t bother me.” Bunny watched Raffles continue to write. “No, Jeeves doesn’t bother me,” he said, though less quickly.

Abruptly, Raffles eyed Bunny. Suspicions were presenting themselves. Then the old anti-hero circled one of the words, and tapped it repeatedly, for Bunny’s benefit. 

The word was shyly read aloud. “Jeeves?” It’s important to recollect that, at this moment, Bunny had a lot going for him. He was a kind chap. The journalism fad was booming for him. He was up-to-date on all the new London housing developments, and their shaved-off master keys. His future prospects were bright and promising. I mention all this to provide the mitigating padding for the robust one-two that must now follow: he was a liar of the poorest quality, and his babyish features rendered this trait obvious. “No, I have no quarrel with Jeeves.”

Raffles wrote again.

Bunny read it, and simpered. “Well, maybe a little. Who wouldn’t envy Jeeves? He’s very capable.”

“Thank you, sir,” Jeeves said.

“But I don’t resent him for it. I’m glad for him. Bertie is very fortunate to have such a fine valet.”

“In the gravy,” I agreed avidly, as a sort of right-ho.

A rocklike studiousness emanated from Raffles. As he deliberated over the implications of Bunny’s quasi-forced testimony, a heavy countenance set itself on his shoulders. Silence was involved, yet it was a fairly fierce number. The look he assaulted my floor with was characterised by a judgemental approach. After a while I concluded that he must be angry at a spider or something, but I was wrong. He penciled another line for Bunny, like a semi-hopeful student who had worked hard on a problem and was waiting to see if his solution passed mustard with the professors.

Bunny bit his lip. “Um,” he said, after which he glanced away, and wavered in his purpose.

Raffles, horrified, reeled back. Not the usual reaction of a hopeful student proved correct, I’ll grant you.

Valiant Bunny tried to laugh it, whatever it was, off. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not important,” he said, with the smile of a friend whose meal isn’t what he ordered, and who tries to smooth things over with the rest of the company who yearn to stir up trouble in his name. “It was a long time ago. I know it doesn’t matter now. I’m only being silly.” I admired his pluck, as Raffles would call it, if nothing else.

To roll out more shorthand was the obvious, well-advised tactic for Raffles. Nothing had impeded his use of it until now, and there was nothing to suggest a change in these conditions. That being said, Raffles did not consult the notebook. He shook his head at himself, and then at Bunny. Given the thick atmosphere hanging over the fellow, what he did next surprised me.

For the uninitiated, Heppenstall’s sermon on Brotherly Love lasts a full fifty minutes. This specific detail concerning the duration was once of great relevance to my interests, being pertinent to the betting odds in a off-course plunge I was elbowed into once, but that’s a different story altogether. The speech explores many themes, the majority of which are variations on the main theme of being devoted to one another, and honouring one another above oneself, and so forth. A total vomit of pure fleece, I assure you. Fluff without qualification.

I think I put it down already that Holmes and Watson were so up in the cloying discipline of Brotherly Love that they could have demonstrated their knowledge to the rev. with some firm handshakes and some hugs round the shoulder, and instantly been excused from the lecture that was years beneath their level. Watson didn’t tell me that himself. I cleverly gathered as much earlier, from the awkward way Watson delicately avoided describing certain scenes of the narrative in detail. I sympathised with his motives for discretion. Warm displays of cordial devotion, if done or discussed in public, might serve as light amusement for some of the boys. The embarrassment can be made to endure for months, if it selectively weaves its path through certain pockets in the community.

Via the witnessing of the next action of Raffles, it was finally brought home to me that Raffles and Bunny would also have been excused from Heppenstall’s sermon. And that’s only if they weren’t asked to come on stage to enlighten the pulpit with an expert demonstration.

Raffles embraced Bunny, pulling him like a tide. Tender hands came around Bunny’s waist and somewhere up the back of the neck, and pressed. Bunny’s face was stuffed curtly into Raffles’s neck. The tight grip of the taller of the pair was applied round the shorter affectionately, and inflexibly. The gesture broached no argument.

It was a shocker to the companion. I saw his eyes, and they were wide as a ball thrown too much to the left. There was a profound delay in his phone line. He couldn’t fathom the manly cuddle, which is often the correct response to these kinds of things. Altogether, it was a touching bout of friendship.

My angle wasn’t topping, so I could have misconstrued parts of it. For example, Raffles kissed Bunny on the forehead, and that was a sprinkle of Brotherly Love that was getting ahead of the class, but maybe I didn’t catch it right.

Raffles pulled back halfway to arm’s length. Bunny spared a single anxious glance in my direction—I don’t know why—though just the one. Raffles didn’t bother with me. His attention was occupied elsewhere. He fondly poked Bunny on the solar plexus.

Bunny said, “Me?” 

Raffles nodded. He clutched Bunny’s hand in his, and raised up the pair to heart-height. 

Bunny’s eyes now had a type of sheen to them. Divine understanding of Raffles’s meaning came to his rescue, for a change. “You chose me for a partner,” he murmured. “Not Jeeves.”

Satisfaction flooded through Raffles. For him, this was the sweep. Though his face was away from me, I could feel his victorious ear-to-ear grin from five miles back. He’d got his message through, and without the self-stenography, no less. 

Bunny sniffled audibly. I felt bad for the ill-fated chap. Of all the times to catch a cold, this wasn’t the most sensible. Fortunately, it was a matter of small moment. If anyone besides me noticed the onset, he didn’t think it worthwhile to mention. Bunny continued to do the impression of a snow-wary rabbit caught in a balmy trap, and wanting to be nowhere else. He kept to Raffles’s determined grip, and clutched Raffles’s shirt. Frankly, it was a spot embarrassing merely to be around.

“Watson.” Holmes’s voice hit a humble tone that I wouldn’t have guessed was in his register. “Do you also fear that I esteem Jeeves over you?”

“Oh, it’s nothing like that.” Watson, like Bunny, though not as bad, was a feeble liar.

Holmes wasn’t having any of it. “Watson.”

“All right.” It was a losing battle from the start. Watson caved liked a ton of bricks. “Yes, I do fear that.” 

“My dear chap!” Holmes drifted over to Watson and affectionately took both of his hands. “How could you think such a thing? We’ve only very recently become acquainted with the man!”

“His company was very agreeable to you in New York,” Watson said, in the manner of a sheep. “You were very keen on cultivating a friendship with him. He seems to be very conversant in a great deal of topics and, well,” the self-deprecating shrug was applied. “He is a much younger man than I am.”

“Watson!” Holmes shushed his friend overpoweringly. “Nonsense, nonsense! If only I had known that I was impressing this tragic impression upon you! I am a fool to have missed it.” His thin fingers slipped gently into the hair behind Watson’s ears. Possibly the kitten metaphor had occurred to him also. I don’t have a monopoly on those things.

Believe it or not, Watson was pleased by this physical excess. The older generation must have a lot of mettle in them to dismiss us younglings as overly liberal, when their fraternities were evidently rife with sisterly piffle.

“Jeeves is a fine acquaintance,” Holmes said dreamily, “but he is not the most appealing man in the world. That position is already rigidly held by another. You are the one whose face I want to see when I awake in the morning, and when I retire for the night.”

Whatever shame Watson was enduring underneath this egregious pile of candy drops, he hid it masterfully under an expression akin to that of melting butter. “Oh, Holmes.”

Then Holmes kissed Watson on the cheek. This time, it was a certainly a kiss. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. The Wooster brain wasn’t imagining. The only viable explanation was the alternative: this Bohemian and his follower behaved in saccharine ways calculated to try the gentlemanly nerves to the utmost.

A nervous titter escaped Watson. “Holmes,” Watson whispered. “You had better mind yourself. We are not in private.”

This goodly advice was much appreciated by the youngest in the party. It neglected to remind everyone that Raffles had initiated this cascade of nauseating soda pop, but I had faith in Holmes to remedy the defect. In this, Holmes disappointed me. He replied, “I understand, I have flustered you with my displays of friendship for my inseparable companion and housemate of nearly a lifetime. I apologise. However, I fancy that we are not disturbing anyone. Jeeves and Wooster don’t seem to mind. We are sentimental old men, and may be forgiven for our maudlin indulgences.”

Bunny worked enough space into his arrangement with Raffles to level a look of expectant curiosity down the path of where I stood. I wouldn’t describe Raffles himself as interested, except insofar as I had become an object of interest to the individual wrinkling his shirt.

I parted the lips to complain. A remark concerning the limit of allowances earned by old men was at the tip of my tongue. However, to my surprise, I couldn’t seal it. Somehow, I didn’t want to.

Holmes shifted his grip on Watson to focus on the hands, and turned to me. Holmes, who was as easy as his best friend was anxious, casually tested the waters. “We are not too silly for you, are we, Wooster?”

I couldn’t disagree, even though I did disagree. Happiness isn’t a guarantee in this world, you know. These two pairs of longtime house-buddies had found some version of it, and it wasn’t for me to squash it. A Wooster doesn’t discourage his friends in any shape or form. Friends who take it up as their responsibility to rain on the parades of others are, in reality, family relations who have been miscategorised.

More importantly, these kind pals of ancient manufacture had so fundamentally harmless and sweet an appearance that it would have been impossible for any young female, having encountered them, not to fawn over them. Adorable, she would have called them, and there was some truth in it. The adorable property of the legendary quadrate, taken as a whole, was greater even than the cuteness of each member summed up in the straightforward sense. “It is all right,” I declared, magnanimous in defeat. “Keep it within industry standards, to the extent that it is technically feasible to do so.”

Holmes and Watson were delighted. Raffles and Bunny, too, valued the words of forbearance. It was inexplicably heartwarming. Fraternal soppiness can’t be all hot air, I thought, if it was a good enough thing for these chaps that they were glad and willing to stick to one another.

“I am of the same mind as Mr Wooster, sir,” Jeeves said. “However, you and Mr Raffles did hazard the risk of causing discomfort to Mr Wooster, who may or may not have taken offence with your unusual actions. It is fortunate that Mr Wooster was not offended in this case. Please take greater care to avoid the contingency in the future.”

No, I hadn’t forgotten Jeeves was with me. Nevertheless, I was astonished to hear Jeeves speak unbidden, and a bona fide op-ed to boot. I was thrilled, and gratified. The freeing influence of Holmes and Raffles had finally wormed its way in, by stages. Those dear pals of mine were thrilled, too, big-hearted chaps that they are, even if their rousing success took the shape of being told off by Jeeves. I spun on my man.

Jeeves noticed. “Yes, sir?” The side of Jeeves’s large head bulged with the deferential effort to try to discern my wishes before I vocalised them. 

I hesitated. For once, looking at Jeeves dumped the joy from the Wooster frame and replaced said joy with misery and sadness. Entirely the reverse of what usually happens. Don’t get me wrong here; Jeeves is the bee’s knees. He is a morale boost and a spirit-lifter, and I’m not talking about the arcane potion that he crafts the morning after I’ve had one too many, although that is a cincher, too. He is a sight for sore eyes, in a nutshell. So, examining the thing academically, what have I cause to be miserable about? 

Well, it’s hard to say. I suppose it bore some connection to the satisfied sights presented by Holmes and Watson, and by Raffles and Bunny. If Jeeves and I were also of an older, more liberal generation, and assuming also that Jeeves wasn’t terribly close-minded generally, embraces and holding of the hands would not be off-limits. If we had the extenuating circumstance of being senile or famous, we could shower expressions of passionate, committed friendship on one another as much as we liked, and we’d have the final say on the issue.

“Jeeves,” I said. “I am sorry to say that these acts of love have moved me.”

His brow flickered upwards a substantial trifle. “Sir?”

“I have been thoroughly impressed by the power of caring for one’s fellow man. Brotherly Love is the rubber that keeps the wires of society from fraying, as old Heppenstall once preached. This species of love is the force that has bound these men together and, despite stripping them of their reason and common sense, made them impervious to life’s knottiest squabbles.”

Jeeves’s brow calmed down. “Ah, yes, sir.”

“Each has found a friend whom he can rely upon not to mock him for his melodramatics.”

“It is a rare advantage, sir.”

I grew nervous. “Were I requested to pick from my long list of chums and colleagues the name of a single friend, more valued and wanted than the rest, it might once have been Bingo, since we were in every school together. You know Bingo. However, that is in the past. Bingo is not my closest confidant, and the recipient of all my trust and admiration. There is but one friend of mine who I can stand living with, and, in fact, prefer to live with. The name I would pick now is Jeeves.”

“That is very kind of you, sir.” Jeeves raised his chin proudly in response. “If I may say so, I also have no other acquaintances whose names would surpass yours.”

That was a knockout. I hadn’t seen that one coming in the least. His kindness frazzled my brain, and my gut turned on itself in a disquieting lurch. ”Yes, well, the young master is not given to isolated fits of melodrama. If he were, those fits would be of a restrained and manly character.” I swallowed very thickly. “However, I am not an unfeeling automaton. I have said you are my friend. The style of the current period is to demonstrate friendliness, and just this once I am inclined to loosen the cufflinks, with reservations. If it doesn’t cross the party line, Jeeves, then I would be just the sort to share with you a spirited shake of the hand!” My ears rang, and the inside of the face exploded into flames. I stuck out the palm, and carefully avoided eye contact. 

“I would be honoured, sir.” Jeeves gracefully extended his hand, and clasped mine.

The touch left me stunned and useless, like a tuning fork smacked against the granite top. I couldn’t feel anything but happy. “Thank you, Jeeves,” I murmured quietly. His strong grip was protective and comforting. He was handsome, and smelled nice. I was too much infatuated with his proximity to pull away, and, if I am honest with myself, too much a coward to push it forward. It was all right with me if we steered clear of any decisions and stayed fixed at the hand like this, and didn’t biff off one way or the other. 

But Zeus was never around when he was needed. I had to make a choice.

“Thank you, Jeeves,” I whispered.

“Thank you, sir,” Jeeves whispered back. He was beaming. You know what I mean.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Holmes, Watson, Bunny, and even Raffles holding their breath. They wore the hopeful faces of a kind of infatuation, waiting for something that was bound to be limit of all that was cute and adorable. They didn’t go so far as to produce the long vowel noise that girls sing quietly to sleeping babies, but I wish they had, because that would have been an excellent epitome of the broad liquefying of toughness going on amidst them. They couldn’t control their adoration of us. Jeeves and I had become the kittens of the hour, or maybe I was the kitten, and Jeeves was the puma. Jeeves isn’t a kitten, although he sometimes is.

I let go of Jeeves’s hand. Down went my right; up went my left. “I don’t suppose,” I immediately braved to say, sucking in air to make myself appear bigger and stronger than I was, “that I could have that one with this one, too?” That would be the non-crossing-over variation of hand-shaking, by the way. Crossing-over agreements necessarily end, or else the participants can’t go about their lives as normal. It’s a dashed nuisance to coordinate conversations and swimming through doors and the like. Handshake agreements on the same side are different, though. They don’t necessarily end. That’s basic science. Undergoing an assault from industrious butterflies in the stomach at times of adversity is basic science, too.

Jeeves understood me. “Is that agreeable to you, sir?” he asked, and I should have known he would. He is too altruistic. The dire needs of others have too much weight with him. Somebody might pass him a tenner at the end, but it’s not adequate. It’s completely out of balance. Jeeves cares so much about being of service. Even his fish-fed brain is liable to forget to check if someone cares about him.

“Oh,” I made an attempt at being casual and not in dire need, “only if it passes muster with you, Jeeves. If it doesn’t, and you do it anyway, then I will leave this room right now and change into the check suit with the red necktie!”

And that’s the opposite of what happened, to the nib. After a subtle three seconds of serious deliberation, Jeeves took possession of the correct hand.


End file.
